Early Days
by Byronofsidius
Summary: The Galactic Federation has always had its fair share of heroes, enemies, and iconic freelancers. Among them can be counted the malicious Space Pirates and their secret weapon, the space dragon Ridley, as well as legendary bounty hunters, ruthless soldiers of fortune. The best of these- William 'Billy' Aran, and in later years, the child he only came to know too late: Samus.
1. Chapter 1

When he planted his feet against the hull of the ship, he flipped a switch on his right hip, which activated the magnetic plates in his suit's boots, securing him beside the outer port hatch. He shivered hard, his teeth rattling in his mouth, the sound echoing inside his skull. The suit was an old-fashioned Parker Mark II, a beast of a thing that most people in his line of work would sneer at before putting on. However, what none of them could argue against was the degree of protection the PM2 offered. His armor could easily take twenty direct blasts from pulse rifles at short to mid range, and still have the structural integrity to hold together and be repaired. It put out a kinetic shield when activated of about four inches, which could itself take six or seven shots before dissipating, and it could recharge itself fully with about five minutes of uninterrupted use.

But the PM2 was an ungainly thing, as he was currently being reminded of as he tried to crouch down to apply polymer plastique around the door frame so he could blow a hole and make his way inside. He could barely get himself bent forward enough to reach his shins, but he didn't trust the derelict's drift spin enough to go to one foot without boosters activated. He didn't want to waste anymore juice from the suit's systems that way, so he slowly slid himself down on the hull, in order to better angle himself to the door for his work.

He looked more like a medieval knight of Earth than an space traveler in the PM2, but he wouldn't upgrade. He'd been working in that suit for fifteen years; the way he figured it, he'd likely die in it some day. He worked the polymer around, and when it was primed, he walked around to the side of the small shuttle and withdrew a trigger from one of his left leg ports. Once he had it in hand, he looked up, eyeballing the cruiser that was his own ship, a bulbous, bullfrog-looking thing of lime green metal. He tapped the side of his bubble helmet to click on his communications.

"Blasting here in a minute, Hoffer," he said to his partner on this job, a fellow wanderer who'd signed on for this trip. The radio clicked in his ear.

"10-4, Billy," said Hoffer in return. "Can you still feel your fingers, though? You gonna be able to hit that trigger?" Hoffer snickered plainly.

"This suit may not have a heating system in it, but it's the reason I'm here using the blasting gel, and you're in the ship," Billy retorted. "Triggering." He thumbed the trigger, and there was a deep vibration under his feet and the dull thud of the small explosion. Billy walked back around to the blown-off door, pushing what remained of it inward, watching as it floated in zero-G into the shuttle. The interior of the entry room was cluttered with what looked like the scrim of someone packing up in a hurry. Whoever had been on the shuttle, they'd been close enough to civilization to send out a distress signal and get picked up. The real question for this salvage operation was, how much did they manage to get off the vessel before leaving?

"Energy cells were supposed to be stored in the cargo hold at the rear," Hoffer chimed in over his comms. Billy planted his boots on the floor and tromped forward, looking left and right, seeking signs of the sort of chaos that comes when someone in a small transport vessel realizes there's problems with the ship. He saw all the tell-tale signs; small items left drifting in zero-G, scrape marks from mag boots rebounding off of various surfaces before the user realized they hadn't activated them yet to move around.

When he got into the shuttle's narrow aisle, he turned left, heading back for the cargo hold. Before he'd gone even four feet, he could see that the shutter door was still clamped shut; the previous owner hadn't bothered grabbing his cargo before jumping ship. A smile spread over his face, fingers twitching like they always did when the close of a job was coming. True, this wasn't his usual kind of work, but at least this time he wasn't worried about some two-bit criminal or freakish alien trying to kill him.

He clicked on his end of the commlink. "Cargo hold's still latched," he said, tromping toward the shutter door. He got two more steps toward the hold before he stopped cold, his eyes happening on something entirely out of place- a single blast scorch on the floor near the cargo door, surrounded by a thin layer of laser-burned blood. "Hoffer, hold up. We got a problem."

"What is it," his partner asked.

"I just realized how many crates are gonna be in there. I'm coming back for the hook line," Billy said, turning around slowly and making his way back to the doorway he'd blasted. His vessel came swooping around slowly, angling so that its entry hatch could open and clamp onto the side of the derelict vessel, allowing Billy to walk right over into his ship. When he was onboard, he walked the five steps to the pod chute, which he activated to rotate the protective armor door, allowing him to access the central aisle of his small ship. Once again in full gravity, he deactivated his mag boots and hustled up to the cockpit, taking off his helmet as he ascended a set of shallow metal steps to the pilot and co-pilot seats.

"What's up," asked Hoffer, sitting in the pilot's seat. Jed Hoffer had never been accused of being a handsome man, and the latticework of scars that composed his face kept such accusations at bay since his young adulthood. His wiry red beard and flaming mop of curly hair, the same hue, bounced about his head as he looked up at Billy. Normally Hoffer was an unbearably cheerful man, always smiling. But what he saw on Billy's face turned his automatic smile into a sheet of worry. "Billy?"

"It's a honey pot," Billy said, dropping down into the copilot seat and sweeping his fingers over the command console. On the view screen ahead of them, hovering off to one side of the visor port, a translucent set of neon green alphanumeric lines of data sprang to life. Billy snapped his fingers and pointed, jabbing his finger repeatedly. "There, right fucking there, they've been here all along."

"What're you talking about, Billy," Hoffer asked, his voice kicking up an octave.

"Stinger Class ship, vector three, drop fifty, off three-hundred," Billy said. Hoffer clicked a few buttons on his own console and gasped.

"Shit," Hoffer rasped. "What tipped you off?"

"Scorch marking, heat-scrubbed blood near the shutter. This was a setup." He pulled up several control system holos from the copilot command console, bringing up shields and powering up the weapons systems on his small ship. "My Hoppy is ready to go. As soon as we're close enough to get an ident tag, run it for open bounties and warrants." Hoffer nodded, flicking his fingers on his own control console, navigating the Hoppy towards the unknown Stinger vessel. When they were about a minute out, he chuckled softly.

"They're powering up primary drives," Hoffer said. "Ident tag incoming." He pulled the yellowish holo display down into his lap and let it run, maneuvering closer to the third ship, pulling away carefully from the derelict trap. As Billy readied his targeting system, Hoffer said, "We've got a hit. Trey and Bon Fossin, got themselves a healthy little bounty on their heads."

"How much," Billy asked, routing his ship's blasters for a shot on the navigations system of the Stinger.

"100,000 credits for one or the other, 250,000 for both at once, and an extra 75,000 if whoever takes them can bring in their ship, too." Billy already knew there'd be extra for the ship- the Fossin twins' ship itself had a reputation in the criminal network, having belonged to their father, who was himself a terror across several systems in his day. Dubbed 'Black Hornet', the ship itself was said to be worth more than four times what law enforcement bodies were willing to pay for it. Its value had nothing to do with its attack power or prowess, but was derived from the fact that it was the only remaining Stinger from the original fleet produced by Q Mark Industries. Essentially, it was an artifact.

Nothing could be done for it now, though. Billy's Hoppy wasn't designed for a sustained dog fight, optimized for hit-and-run tactics at its core. If he didn't cripple the Black Hornet quickly, he and Hoffer would be lucky to limp back to the station they'd set out from. "Firing blasters," he said. Through the viewer, they watched as two eight-foot green energy bolts flew from the Hopper's cannons, blowing huge chunks of metal and other material from the starboard side of the enemy vessel, sending it in a slow spin. "Readying ion pulse pod," Billy said.

Half a minute later, a small silvery ball launched from the Hopper, striking the Hornet and unleashing a lightning storm of faint blue energy crackling around the target. Hoffer snickered again. "They've lost propulsion, weapons, and shields. Good timing. Another few seconds, their shields would've been up."

"Stingers were designed to draw energy to navigation systems in an emergency," Billy said, his tone cold iron. He was in the grip of what combat veterans sometimes called 'The Lockdown', his emotions utterly shut off, his mind racing through facts, figures, and tactical options. "I shot out the nav core, so of course they couldn't get them up in time. Still, too close for my liking." He sighed, looking over at Hoffer's holo displays. "I can't read that board. What've they got left?"

"Gravity, life support, and comms."

"Open a channel," Billy said. "Audio only." Hoffer hit a few buttons and snapped his fingers, making a shooting gesture at Billy. Billy cleared his throat and said, "This is William Aran, registered bounty hunter with the Tashar Alliance, the Freshon Empire, the Kelpoor Federation, and the First Earth Alliance. Identify yourselves." There was silence from the other vessel for a minute, then some whispers back and forth before one of the other travelers spoke.

"We are Trey and Bon Fossin," said a raspy, frightened voice. "And you've disabled our Black Hornet. We are prepared to surrender to arrest upon condition." Billy raised an eyebrow at Hoffer, who just shrugged.

"What's your condition," Billy asked.

"Take us on board your ship, and once we're aboard, destroy the Hornet," said the speaker, likely Trey. According to the file display Hoffer was showing Billy, Trey did most of the talking and dealing for the outlaws. He was the alpha, while Bon, a behemoth of a man, served mostly as muscle and weapons expertise.

"Why would you want us to do that," Billy asked. "Ship's worth 75k by its own."

"Well, it's either that, or we activate the self-destruct, ride the handsome, and you piece of shit bounty hunters get squat." Billy reached over into Hoffer's lap, pulled up the bounty details, and grunted. There was no reward on the Fossins for proof of death; they were wanted alive by not only the government bodies Billy had mentioned, but also by several others with which he was not registered. However, there was one listing for a reward of proof of death, and it was a private contract for one Baltho Karzun.

"Says here Baltho Karzun is willing to pony up thirty thousand credits for video evidence of you kids biting the dust," Billy said, his tone still devoid of inflection. "I've got viewers recording everything on screen, so, you do the math." He was met with laughter in response.

"Check your records, bondsman," said Trey with undisguised humor. "Karzun's been dead for about five months now. We saw to that." Hoffer quickly cycled through public info-casts, and about twenty seconds later, pulled up a holo image showing a story about Baltho Karzun, a weapons smuggler in Magwell galaxy, having been found dead in his home on Ixon IV months earlier. Billy shook his head, growling.

"Well, we could've used the bonus, but what the hell," he said, coming down from The Lockdown. "Prepare for dock clamping. You have my word that we'll destroy the Black Hornet once you're aboard and we're safely out of range." The commlink cut out then, and the bounty hunters maneuvered the Hopper into clamping position with the Hornet. Fully armored and holding pulse rifles, the hunters met the twins at the blast door transfer tube. The Fossin brothers, for their part, weren't being dumb about it. They had their hands held up against the backs of their heads, Trey a short, wiry fellow with a graying buzz-cut, Bon a hulking beast of muscle without hair to speak of. Both had faces that would be classically referred to as 'born to hang' looks.

"Well, this was bound to happen eventually," Trey said amicably enough as Hoffer lowered his rifle to put restraints on the twins while Billy held his rifle on them. Despite the twins' reputation, they didn't resist or try any trickery while being placed in vibroshackles. "Still, to think that Billy Aran was the one to snag us, well, that's pretty special," said Trey. Billy grinned, putting the rifle in its holster over his shoulder.

"Nothing special about it, really. I just got the jump on you, since you were expecting me to open those shutters. What was it rigged with?"

"EMP pod. We been snatching scavenger ships for about a year with that fake salvage job," Trey said. "We turn around, sell 'em to whoever's looking, take the scavers out to Lexon Prime to sell off to the slavers there. About thirty in total, not bad for petty crooks." Billy and Hoffer guided them to one of the three small cabins on the ship and locked them inside after showing them how to use the space-saving sliding toilet and sink. When they were back up front, Billy took the primary pilot's seat and console, opening a hailing channel with Station Paragon Seven, where he'd met up with Hoffer and taken the salvage job.

"Station Paragon Seven, this is William Aran, seeking contact with station security chief Borta, over," Billy said, turning their ship around and sailing to a safe blast distance from the Black Hornet. When he had them far enough away, he fired a lone Apocalypse Pod at the vessel, and soon the darkness of space behind them erupted in a soundless concussion wave of blasting force as the Hornet was blown to Kingdom Come. He started guiding them back towards the station.

Five minutes later, the comms blipped loudly, and a watery voice spoke to them. "This is Borta, security chief of Station Paragon Seven, I read you, Aran. What's going on?"

"I have the Fossin twins in custody here. Turns out they had a honey pot set up out here."

"Well, shit, that's probably why all those scavengers have been disappearing around these parts," said Borta. "They got open bounties?"

"They do. Are you authorized to process and pay out for any of them? It's a unified contract across seven systems, so I got no preferences."

"I am authorized, and I've been allocated funds by First Earth. Processing will take about four hours once you have them back here. And oh, since you're on the horn, there's a package here for you."

"Package," Billy asked. "From who?"

"I don't know, and I haven't seen it for myself. Folks over in Citizen Services gave me a memo about it, so you should see them after you process those two." Billy thanked the chief for his help and cooperation, then focused on getting them back to the station. It was a short flight, only two hours to the hovering outpost over Norap III. He pulled the Hopper into a docking port, and he and Hoffer brought their prisoners out into the staging bay, where a dozen security officers met them to take the twins away, several commenting that there was no way the two could be twins and look so different.

Borta met them shortly after, guiding the bounty hunters to his office and issuing them their credits after making them fill out the lengthy and mandatory forms needed to officially claim the bounties and have the contracts listed as fulfilled. Hoffer shook hands with Billy then, making his farewells brief. "I've got some buddies down on the planet I'm going to go see," Hoffer said with a smile as Billy guided him to the station's planet-side shuttle service bay. "After that, I'm going to buy myself a little rig like you got. I've got the credits now, figure I should work some jobs solo, you know?"

"Well, if you piss away your money and need some work, you know how to get hold of me, my friend," Billy said, giving the gruff man a warm embrace, clapping him on the back. With all of that tended to, Billy remembered that Borta had said something about Citizen Services having a package for him. The station wasn't overly large for such an installation, but it still took him nearly an hour to navigate its myriad walkways and lifts to find the section devoted to the department.

The automatic sliding glass doors whooshed open for him as he entered, his helmet swung back against his shoulder blades on its hinges, his rugged but handsome face lighting the entry lobby with his best smile as he approached the faux wooden secretary's desk in front. The secretary herself was a plump and vibrant woman in a dark blue dress and half-sweater, the air conditioning apparently on a kind of psychotic kick, dropping the temp in the lobby to a nigh-unbearable chill. She beamed up at him as he leaned with one arm on her desk. "Can I help you, sir," she asked brightly.

"Mayhap you can. I'm William Aren. Chief Borta told me there's a package here for me?" The woman's smile faded a little, but she recovered quickly. He didn't like that one bit, but he kept his wits about him and said nothing. If he let on that he'd seen her reaction to his name, she might take a different tack with him, and he didn't want that. After all, he'd rarely had people treat him nicely on first encounter, and he hated when he ruined such meetings.

"We do, sir. You're going to want to talk to miss Catelyn Marsh. She's down that left hallway, fourth door on the left." He nodded and headed to the hallway she'd indicated, taking a quick glance back at her. He recognized the look she was giving him when she looked away- pity. What need would he have of her pity? Steeling himself for whatever was coming, Billy walked down the wide hallway and stopped in front of a partially open door to a small office, where sat another human woman, wearing an efficient, if somewhat severe, plain brown pantsuit. She looked up at her doorway when he knocked and pushed the door open, her face a neutral mask without a hint of what she could be thinking.

"You are," she asked.

"William Aran," he said. She waved one hand at the two chairs across from her desk, and he trundled over to the one farther into the office, carefully sitting down. The PM2's mobility issues hindered genuine relaxation, but he could at least keep from breaking other people's furniture. "Um, what's this about a package for me?"

"Mr. Aran, I need to ask a few procedural questions before we can get into that," said Marsh brusquely. "Firstly, did you know a miss Korynn Trallert of Second Earth, Mr. Aran?" Billy searched his memory, and came up immediately with a mental image of Korynn. She had been a Svestri woman, one of the thousands of humans who had undergone genetic experimentation at the Svestri Institute on Second Earth some eight or nine years earlier. He recalled her well, for she'd been the only woman he'd ever laid with who had green hair. She'd been a wild thing, an outlaw in First Earth's system who'd been wanted for several vicious brawls in which she'd left her victims near death. The bounty on her head had been considerable, but when Billy had caught up with her, she hadn't run, and she hadn't fought. She'd only wanted one thing from him before turning her in, and he'd been more than happy to provide.

"Yes, I knew her," he finally replied. "Biblically, if that's what you're asking," he added with a wolfish grin. Marsh just narrowed her eyes and made a disapproving sound deep in her throat. "Um, why?"

"Mr. Aran, you are registered as an authorized bounty hunter with the First Earth Alliance, correct?"

"I am," he said.

"And you are bonded as a hunter of Stated Pledge status, yes?"

"I am, yes. I pay for any extraneous damages out of pocket. It's only the right thing to do. A good bounty hunter doesn't need to be reckless," he said with a measure of pride, chest puffing out.

"Good. That's very good. Now, Mr. Aran, I've already consulted your genetic records with regards to the package you're here to pick up, and have confirmed for myself that the match is genuine. Wait here," she said, standing up and walking out of her office. She was gone only a few moments, returning with a thick green file folder. She sat back down and opened it to the first page. "Korynn Trallert, born on First Earth in 2446 A.D., emigrated with her parents to Second Earth in 2457 A.D. She volunteered for the Svestri Experiments nine years later, and immediately began a criminal career, getting into fights with little or no provocation. She was in and out of correctional facilities for a while, but she learned how to elude local law enforcement. Took a few trips around to several system planets, made the rounds in some of the underground fighting circuits. Charming woman."

"Yeah, she was wild all right," Billy said. He coughed, shook his head. "But, if you don't mind my asking, where do I fit in here?"

"Miss Trallert is dead, Mr. Aran," said Marsh, flipping through the pages in the folder until she was almost to the end.

"Oh," he said, looking down at his hands in his lap. "I'm, uh, sorry to hear that. But, again, what's that got to do with me?"

"Miss Trallert had a child, Mr. Aran," Marsh said. Billy's heart skipped a beat as he whipped his head up to look at her. "Your child. A daughter. She's eight years old, and she is now your responsibility." Billy leaned back in his seat, all speech forgotten, his limbs weak and trembling. Marsh used her desk intercom to call for someone named Trent, and a minute later, Billy looked over to the office doorway to see a man standing behind a short, thin slip of a girl with long, wavy green hair. She was an elfin thing, her face narrow and pinched, her nose pointed, almost triangular. She had large blue doe's eyes, innocent yet intelligent. She wore a plain dark pink sweater over baggy white cloth trousers, her feet squeezed into black tennis shoes too small even for her feet. Marsh stood up and took a deep breath. "Mr. Aran, this is Samus."


	2. Early Days Chapter 2- Learning the Rules

"This is the cockpit," Billy said as he led the quiet girl by the hand up the shallow chromed steps into the front of the Hopper. "This is where I control the ship from when I don't have it set to autopilot. Do you ken autopilot," he asked. She nodded, still not saying a word. She hadn't spoken a word since leaving Citizens' Services with him, her only sign of acknowledgment the fact that she'd taken his hand when he offered it to her. He had never been much good with children, or with anyone really below the age of thirty. He just hadn't ever been the sort to associate with younger people. Yet somehow, this child made him feel comfortable doing so.

Samus let go of his hand and walked over to the pilot's seat, sitting down in it slowly. She pushed the primary holo display button, bringing up the Hopper's initializing readouts. She ran one finger slowly down each line of data, eyes widening as she read through the information. "Huh, you been on a ship like this before?" She looked up at him and nodded once again. "Did your mother have one of her own?" Nod, nod. "You know, you can speak if you want to. Can you speak?"

"I can," she said softly, her voice barely audible. "Mother always said that I should save my voice for when I need it."

"Hmm. Wise, your mother. In her way," he said. "Do you know how to run a ship?" This time she shook her head in the negative. "But you know your way around console systems?" She shrugged. "What class was your mother's ship?"

"Hammerhead, Type 3," said Samus.

"Oh, then you've got it wrong, child. Hammerheads have their pilot seat on the right side, right?" Nod, nod. "This here's a Stinger class. Pilot's on the left." Samus got up, shut off the holo screen, and moved over to the copilot seat. There, she drew out several holo screens, swiping through them and looking at the information before her rapidly. She quickly shut them off and stood up. "Well, what do you think, child?"

"Your ship has a rotational rod deficiency of thirteen percent. Fuel cells have been drained to eighty-seven percent. Your blaster array has an overcharge feedback of point-two-one, which means it fires very powerful shots, but they aren't as quick as those of a neutral system." Billy just blinked rapidly at her, then laughed heartily and patted the girl gently on the back.

"Aye, you're your mother's child, all right. Smart as anything living, she was, and very clever. Learned things quicker than anyone had a right to." He shook his head, remembering Korynn's manner. He'd only spent a few days with her, but they'd been memorable. And, apparently, productive. "Come along, we'll get your things from luggage." He led her by the hand once more off of the ship and out to the luggage loading area of the docking bay. Samus's bags were clearly labeled with her name, but they were only two bags, and not all that large. He looked down at her as he picked up both with one hand. "Is this all you have," he asked gently. Nod, nod. He took a deep breath. "Okay. What I'm going to suggest we do here is get your cabin set up, then do a little shopping, get you some things for our trip home."

"Where is home, sir," she asked. Billy cringed at the word 'sir' coming from her, but he understood where it came from. This child had known him for less than an hour, and she was being thrust into his care for better or worse. She had no idea what sort of adult she could be dealing with here. Given the circles her mother had run with, it was probably safest to be quiet and respectful.

"Home is Verton Prime, out in the Westrin galaxy. It's about six days' flight from here in hyperdrive, so we'll be topping off those fuel cells you mentioned before, in case we get detoured," he said. "Come along." She took his hand once more, and together, they made their way to the station's commercial deck, with Billy taking her to several shops for clothes, toiletries, and a few gewgaws he hoped she'd take some form of interest in. When in a small toy store, he nodded with approval as she bypassed all the dolls and stuffed animals, making her way immediately for the foam dart blaster guns. _Chip off the old block here_, he thought as he paid for their purchases and took her back to the Hopper.

The trip home would be a learning experience.

##

Several hours into the autopilot hyperdrive flight, as he sat in the small kitchen/dining chamber off the main aisle, Billy remembered that he wasn't eating alone anymore. "Samus," he called down the passageway. She popped her head out of the doorway of her cabin, eyes wide with alarm. "Come along, child, you need to eat." She came out of her room, wearing one of the new shirts he'd got her, a pale yellow longsleeved number over matching trousers. In her left hand she carried the foam dart blaster, keeping it aimed down at her side as she approached the dining area. She came into the narrow mess hall, standing there for all the world like she had no idea what to do. "You know how to fetch food for yourself?" Nod, nod. "Well, if there's something you like to eat and don't know how to make, just ask me, and I'll make it for you, okay?" Samus seemed to consider this very carefully, opening the fridge and looking over its contents, then shutting it before moving on to the small pantry cabinet. She repeated the process, then moved on to the cupboard where Billy's few cookware items were kept. He hadn't needed much for himself, just a knife for spreading mustard on a couple of pieces of bread.

"Can you make me some scrambled eggs," she asked timidly. "With cheese in?" He chuckled and nodded.

"A simple thing, child. Come over to the stove, I'll show you how it's done, so you can know in the future, yes?" Nod, nod, though these nods had an edge of enthusiasm she hadn't shown yet. He went about the process, explaining what he was doing at each moment, until the eggs were made up and on a small plate for her on the two-person table set into the wall on hinges. She paid deep attention to everything he did, never seeming to stray for even a moment in her observation. Her focus was impressive, considering her young age. Had she learned how to take everything in from her mother? Or had it been something inherited, possibly a carry-over from her mother's altered genetic code? He didn't know, but he wondered if that might be useful in the future.

He got her a fork and the small salt shaker, but she ignored the salt and tucked in, methodically working her way around her food in a circular pattern, eating from the outside in. Billy finished his sandwich, grabbed them each a drink, her a soda and himself a cup of instant coffee, and settled into his seat opposite her. "Samus, tell me some about yourself. You're my child, and I know nothing about you."

"There isn't much to tell, sir," she said. "I'm only eight, and haven't done anything much to talk about."

"But you're a very smart child, Samus. You speak with a way that's very grown-up. Did you learn your letters from your mother?"

"Yes, she taught me letters, numbers, sums, and let me read whatever I wanted to, so that I could learn all manner of things. She told me I'd learn everything quickly because I'm Svestri, like her. And thus far, she's been right. I do learn things very quickly." Billy nodded.

"Well, good thing you got your mother's wits. If you'd have gotten mine, you'd be dumber than a post," he quipped. When she was finished with her food, Samus got up and carried her plate over to the sink, running water over it and looking for something. "What are you looking for?"

"Sponge," she said.

"No need. There's a dishwasher there," he said. She looked at it, then at him, clearly confused. "You always did dishes by hand, I take it?" Nod, nod. "There's a handle in the center of the top. Here," he said, showing her and pulling out one of the racks. She set her plate and fork in, then slid the rack back and closed it. "We'll run it later, when there's more dishes. Now I'm going to nip up front and check the comms, see if there's any new messages inbound, then send one off of my own ahead of us." Samus nodded, and Billy made his way to the cockpit, moving far more nimbly since changing out of the PM2 suit. His normal traveling clothes, a plain beige button shirt, jeans, and dark brown duster jacket gave him back his mobility, which felt tremendous. He often forgot how heavy the armored space suit was when wearing it too, so he felt less fatigued than he had of late.

He only had one message waiting for him on the comms, a video communique from Joras Whent, the Commissioner of Bounty Hunters for the First Earth Alliance. Whent was a bizog, a race of creatures that looked like humanoid boars, and his visage always put Billy ill at ease when he spoke with the man. Not that Whent was unfriendly or unlikable, however. In fact, were it not for his savage appearance, Billy could easily see himself being good friends with the Commissioner.

Whent's message boiled down to congratulating Billy for bringing in the Fossin twins and getting them off the lists. "Don't forget to swing by some time for a beer when you're in the system, Billy," he added at the end with a chuckle. "Whent out." Billy briefly turned his attention then to news cycles from his home planet, cutting through all of the unimportant clutter and satisfying himself that all was quiet at home. With that done, he headed back for his cabin. Along the way, he stopped by Samus's doorway and poked his head in, finding her sitting on her bed with a book in hand. It was one of the young adult novels she'd selected while they were shopping on the station, and he grinned to see her being so content.

He couldn't remember when he'd been so easily pleased.

##

It was early the following morning when Billy experienced his first moment of parental awkwardness in earnest. So accustomed was he to traveling alone that he didn't think anything of it when the main latrine door was shut to him, clean clothes in hand, towel draped over his shoulder. Bleary eyed and wanting nothing but to take his morning shower so he could wake up for the day, he just slid the door open without thinking. He looked up at the sound of a high-pitched shriek, finding Samus standing in the shower stall, the glass panel door open, covering her tiny body with her arms as best she could. Billy let out a yelp and backed out of the room around the corner, heart racing. "Slide that shower door shut, child," he called in.

"Sorry, sir," she said, and he heard the glass panel door slide into position. He shook his head, the image of a long scar along her hip burning in his mind's eye. "I'm used to living with my mother. She said girls have nothing to hide from each other under their clothes. I forgot."

"Well, you won't be forgetting again, I hope," he replied. He poked his head in, searching for her clothes and a towel. "Samus? You didn't bring a towel."

"I don't know where they are. I was going to use my shirt from yesterday to dry." Billy set his bundle down in the hallway, grabbed a towel from the linen cabinet set in the wall next to the latrine door, and brought it in, sliding it over a bar on the outside of the filmed shower door.

"You find the shampoo I bought for you," he asked.

"Yes, thank you, sir," she replied. "I can be done soon, if you need the shower."

"That would be good, child. I'll wait in the mess," he said. He was only sitting down for a minute or two when she came sauntering in silently, dressed in a dark blue shirt with a white cat printed on it and khaki shorts. The scar on her left hip and leg came down to her knee, partially visible in her current attire. "Samus, how did you get that scar on your hip and leg," Billy asked as she sat across from him.

"It was two years ago. There was a riot on a ship mother and I were traveling on, and someone accidentally cut me with a vibroblade during the fray," she said evenly. She pushed a long lock of her green hair out of her face and looked at Billy. "I had to sit in a recovery pod for four hours while I was healed, but the scar is permanent." Billy nodded, then reached out and ruffled her hair playfully. She stood for this without complaint or resistance.

"Well, you're safe here, child. Now, if you want some cereal and some juice, you know where they are. I don't normally cook for breakfast, so it'll mostly be fending for yourself in the mornings, okay?" Nod, nod. "Back to being quiet, eh?" Nod, nod. "As you will, child." Billy scrubbed himself clean in the shower, his first good chance to get bathed in nearly a week, and the water sloughed off of his head in dark sheets. _Dear gods, I was filthy,_ he thought, watching the grayed water swirl down the drain.

When he stepped out, he realized that Samus had left her clothes from the day before on the latrine floor, and her towel was bundled up on the sink. He shook his head and grunted, getting dressed. "Samus," he called out. She knocked on the door a few seconds later. "I'm decent, you can open the door." She did, and stood in the doorway, hands folded in front of her. "Samus, did your mother let you leave your things laying around the bathroom at home?" She shrugged. "Okay. There are some rules for being on my ship, and when we get home, there will be some rules for you to follow there, all right? One rule is, when you're done with a shower, you take your clothes and towel and take them to the laundry machine. Grab your things," he said, and she complied silently. "Follow me."

Down the ship's aisle he led her, until they were up near the cockpit. He pulled open a metal chute, and pointed inside. Samus set her clothes in, then Billy his own, and he pushed the chute shut. He clicked a dial to start the machine, and clapped his hands. "I just preload detergent and drying chemicals every week or so, and do my things as they need done. That way, I never get cluttered. Do you ken cluttered?" Nod, nod. "Good."

"Why do you use that word, sir," she asked as he led her back to the mess.

"What word?"

"Ken. It's an old word for 'know' or 'understand'. I learned that from my mother. I've never heard anyone else use it like you do." Billy shrugged with a grin.

"Just one of my many eccentricities, I suppose."

"You also speak much better than most bounty hunters," she added. "Mother knew several of them, and they spoke rough."

"I'm not most bounty hunters, child," Billy said, sipping coffee.

"I can see that, sir," Samus said. Billy gave her a careful look, then took another sip of his brew and set the cup aside.

"Samus, why do you call me 'sir'? I'm your father, you know. You can call me dad, or father, if you'd like."

"I don't know you very well, sir," she said, a perfectly logical line of thought that he'd had just the day before. "Perhaps with time I will."

"Aye, perhaps," he said. A loud 'cheep-cheep' came over the ship's PA system, telling him there was an inbound communication. He looked up at the speaker grille set over the mess's doorway, and reached for a yellow switch on the wall over the table. "This is William Aren, who's on the line," he said aloud, flipping the switch down. The PA crackled as whoever was hailing him prepared to speak.

"It's Roger," said a wispy, effeminate voice over the comms. "Billy, it's been a long time since you came through this way! Where you headed?"

"Home," Billy said after flipping the switch. "Are you along the same route right now?"

"Yeah, picked up your ship's signal a few minutes ago. Oooh, it's been too long, Billy! Do you want to link up? You know my ship can keep up." Billy switched off his end, giving Samus a hard glare.

"Say nothing," he said to her sternly. Nod, nod. He flipped switch back up and smiled, though nobody but Samus could see him. Billy believed that a performance had to be total if it was going to be effective.

"Sure thing, Roger. Let me come down out of hyperdrive and we'll get linked. You remember where my port door is for clamping, right?"

"Of course, Billy dear," said the other man, and the line went dead. Billy got up and took Samus's wrist in hand, hauling her off to her cabin in a hurry and almost tossing her inside. She looked up at him with wide, wet eyes, tears threatening.

"Listen to me, Samus, you're going to feel the ship slow down, and you're going to feel some rumbling and shaking as we're linked to Roger's ship. He's going to come aboard, and it's important that you stay in here and stay quiet. Use the drawer toilet as soon as I close this door, and then be as quiet and still as you can, okay?"

"Are you scared, sir," she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

"Scared, yes, but not for me. Roger's an old friend, but I owe him credits, and he wouldn't hesitate to try and collect in ways other than the usual, and that includes you. I can afford to pay him off now, so I'm going to do that and hope like hell he goes away without noticing you."

"I don't understand."

"I'll explain later, child, but for now, do as I say. In any emergency like this, you must do what I say, and nothing else. Do you understand?" She nodded as usual, and he shut the door on his way out. He heard Samus lock the cabin, and a minute later, heard the flush of her drawer toilet. _Good girl,_ he thought, heading for the cockpit. He brought the Hopper out of hyperdrive, and watched on the viewer screen as Roger's ship, a phallic-shaped Streamer class cruiser came around his ship and matched course with him. The link clamps engaged, and he heard the whir of the passage tunnel extending between ships, locking them together side-by-side. "Here we go," he muttered to himself with a sigh.

Billy made sure he had a good sharp knife concealed at his back, then walked out to the entry door, easing it open on the passage tunnel. Roger Gent was already halfway along the passage, a short, pudgy man dressed in cream-colored robes, a shining shaved head sitting like a smiling cue ball atop his thick neck. His hands were tucked into the sleeves of his outer robe, making him look for all the world like some kind of monk. These flashed out as he neared, extending his arms for a friendly embrace, a smile that didn't reach his eyes spreading across his wide face. The hands were ugly things, all unsheathed metal and wires.

"Billy Aran, it is so good to see you," Roger boomed, wrapping Billy in a bearhug and lifting him off his feet for a moment before setting him down. Behind him, standing in the doorway of his own ship, was a hulking pair of rinkas, rhino-men from the Fazos galaxy. They made no move or sound, just standing sentinel in their blackened beetle-shell armor, huge plasma rifles in hand.

"Likewise, Roger. I've got a surprise for you," Billy said. "Follow me," he added, guiding the bald man inside and to his own cabin. There, he pulled out a blast case from under his bed, opening it for Roger's inspection. Inside lay scores of credit sticks. "More than enough to pay you back, and toss in some extra for interest."

"Oh, my," said Roger, clearly pleased. "There was no need for that, Billy. We're friends, you and I," he said, closing the case and carrying it back to the passageway. One of his men came stomping forth, took the case, and carried it away as Billy led Roger to the cockpit, where they sat and turned the pilot and copilot seats toward one another. "I've got my vessel auto-locked for home, if you're prepared," Roger said.

"Give the word," Billy replied, unlocking his own ship's nav system. Roger drew out a small device from one of his robe's pockets, clicked a few buttons, and shortly they were flying away in hyperdrive again, the two ships now combined to move as one. He tucked the device away and sighed, smiling at Billy in earnest now.

"I knew you'd pay me back eventually, Billy," said Roger. "So, what brings you back home again? Taking some time off from the hunting circuit?"

"Some, yes," Billy said. "I own that house, figure I should make use of it now and again." The two men chuckled amiably. "Anybody been keeping an eye on it?"

"Besides myself," Roger asked, shaking his head. "Nobody, no. But there _is_ news you should be caught up on. Do you remember old Valgor Resh?"

"Owned the salvage fleet out of Nordock, right?"

"Just so," said Roger. "Well, he went out on a salvage run with some of his better men and ran afoul of Ridley." Billy flinched at the name, his skin crawling in gooseflesh. "I know," said Roger quietly, his expression vaguely frightened. "Nobody's sure when he showed up in our system, but he's been ravaging the outers, plundering everywhere he goes."

"What business would the space dragon have in our system," Billy asked. "Are the Space Pirates with him?"

"No, not this time," Roger said, shaking his head. "He's operating independently this time. Which I suppose brings me to my next point. I'm not really heading home, Billy," Roger said. "I'm heading in that direction for a few more hours, nothing more, then turning toward Phantos." Billy raised an eyebrow at the bald man, who just grinned. "Yes, I have business to conduct there."

"Not very reputable business if you're heading there."

"My men are near the end of their contract, and do not wish to renew," Roger admitted with a sigh. "They do not approve of my, ah, primary business model."

"They don't like slavers," Billy said flatly. "I thought you were done with that shit Roger. What happened?"

"Good money came in from the last batch I saw to Ixon," Roger replied. "Their governing body changed hands, and they're now openly accepting of slavery. A man has needs, and one of them is credits, Billy. Moneylending isn't very profitable anymore." Billy scoffed, looking away at the viewscreen. After a minute, he looked Roger in the eye.

"Where has Ridley hit in the system hardest," he asked, going back to more important conversation.

"Praxis and Parik. He destroyed the entire Praxian fleet when they came at him in the rosser mines."

"How much rosser did he take?"

"Enough to fill his ship's holds and then some. About twenty tons in total. Nobody can figure what he needs all of that for, but people are talking about something else he's got onboard his ship."

"What's that?"

"Metroids," Roger rasped. Billy felt like someone had punched him in the chest. Metroids were strange, jellyfish-like alien creatures of unknown origin, randomly showing up in systems with relatively low populations and wiping out all sentient life by affixing themselves to their prey's bodies and sucking out all of their energy and bodily fluids. The creatures weren't indestructible, but they could shrug off most conventional forms of weaponry without a scratch. High yield explosives were the only effective method known to be able to destroy them, such as personal fragmentation mines and missiles. Energy weapons were, as a rule, fairly useless with them. "I know, it's rather disturbing, but several witnesses have seen the metroids flying around Ridley, as if helping him in his assaults."

"Maybe they are helping him. If anyone could figure out how to communicate with the metroids, it would be Ridley. He's too smart for his own good," Billy said. "How many times has he been killed now? Eight? Nine?"

"So long as the Space Pirates keep reviving him, it doesn't matter. Someone needs to go after their organization as a whole, instead of focusing so entirely on the dragon. Without them to help him, he would stay dead. And he gets harder to kill every time he's brought back, so whoever takes him on in the future, they need to make sure he's completely obliterated, or take out the Pirates."

"Cellular destruction's been tried," Billy said. "Remember, the incinerator on Valgar VIII? They thought they'd done the job."

"But they didn't scrub his blood," Roger pointed out. "Every trace needs to be gone. That, or we need to figure out a way to lock him up that he can't escape from. Even space dragons can be starved to death." Roger sighed, then got up from the copilot's seat. "These are dark times, my friend. If you value your life, don't go back home just yet. Wait until Ridley and his metroids have left the system. I might be able to find a job or two for you."

"I can't do that," Billy said. "I've got to get some affairs in order back home, and they won't wait." Roger gave him a sidelong look of curiosity, but just shrugged a moment later and made his way back to the connection tunnel with his hands in his sleeves. Billy walked with him, hand on his shoulder. "But when you come back home, get in touch if you've got work for me. I'm always looking for good jobs."

"And doing them, as well," Roger said with a smirk. "Billy, it's been good seeing you again. I think I'll turn course earlier than I'd said before, and leave you go on your way from here. I'll be in touch." And with that, Roger returned to his vessel, the ships detached, and Billy's Hopper was once again riding along on its own under autopilot. He watched from the cockpit as the stars streaked by on either side of his small ship, not noticing Samus until she leaned her head against his arm.

"He would've tried to take me as payment, wouldn't he," she asked quietly. Billy put his arm around her shoulder, letting her lean against him.

"Yes, child, he would have."

"I'll follow the rules," she said.

"Good. You'll survive longer that way, living with me."

##

When the Hopper lowered onto its landing pad, its systems powering down one-by-one, Billy helped Samus get her things packed onto a hoverpad first, then tended to his own few trunks. Together they stepped out into the bright mid-morning sunlight and the hustle and bustle of hundreds of men and women working the port. Samus didn't exactly smile, but he could see clearly how impressed and pleased she was at the sight of civilization. "This is Verton Prime's main spaceport, child, the finest in all of the Westrin galaxy. There's three-hundred and forty-six permanent docking pads, of which this one is mine. In addition, there are four-hundred and fifty-four guest pads, all employing over twenty-thousand port crewmen. This is one of the primary trade hubs for Westrin and eight galaxies surrounding it. Impressive, yes?" Nod, nod. "Are you going to go all quiet on me again?" Nod, nod. "Well, at least you're honest about it. Don't do well with crowds, do you?" Shake, shake. "Well, that's all right. Come one, follow me."

Through the wide lanes and pathways around the spaceport he led her, making their way to a shuttle station which rented out auto-pods to returning residents of the planet. He swiped his I.D. tag at one of the pod bays, and a lime green, boxy hover shuttle swooped down from the towering structure behind them. A pneumatic door whooshed open, and father and daughter pushed their hoverpads inside ahead of them, then seated themselves up front as Billy programmed in the coordinates for his private home, a small house only seven miles from the spaceport.

The hover shuttle zipped off, flying only twenty yards over the ground and all of the foot traffic going hither and thither on the planet's surface. Samus looked down at them through the viewing glass under her feet, and quirked her head to one side. "What are those things," she asked, pointing at shuttles that did not leave the ground.

"They're called cars," Billy said. "Planetsiders rarely spring for shuttles, preferring grounded vehicles. They're like rovers, only they run on different fuels. They're very cheap, only about a hundred credits for a new one, so planetsiders make them their primary transportation."

"What's a planetsider," Samus asked.

"Oh. Um, that's a word for someone who doesn't travel in space, living their whole life on a single planetary surface. There's lots of planetsiders on every planet. There's even a few galaxies where nobody travels in space, because their peoples haven't developed the technology to travel yet."

"Like First Earth back in the twenty-first century," Samus asked.

"Yes, just like that. But they lucked out when the bentari came and offered to take them the last few steps. Humans were already very close to space exploration, you see, but First Earth didn't have any evos, which the bentari brought with them. We've made damned good use of it since then." Samus remained silent the rest of the trip, until their shuttle landed on the grass in front of a humble one-story ranch style home in gray trim. "Well, this is us, child. Come along," he said, getting up and opening the door panel. They pulled their hoverpads along behind as he led her to the front door, flipping open a numerical keypad and entering the code to deactivate the security systems. The white panel door clicked open, and he pushed his way inside.

True to Roger's word, the house had been watched. Had it not, it surely would have been sacked, but everything was precisely as he'd left it when last he'd been around. The front door opened on a wide living room with an L-shaped leather couch, an entertainment system that had been top-of-the-line ten years ago, and a coffee table which bore several dusty old books. He smiled to look at it. It wasn't glamorous, but it was all his, every inch of it. He'd earned enough after only three bounty jobs, working as a second man in a crew of four, to purchase it all and have it installed.

Some bounty hunters were among the 'verse's greediest bastards, but not William Aran. He knew how to be happy with what he had. "Well, there's two bedrooms, and one of them's empty. That'll be yours. I'll bring up the nearest order board and get you some furniture delivered this afternoon," he said, dragging his trunks to his own bedroom. The narrow twin-sized bed was as it had been, neatly made and kept chilled with an air conditioning unit running the moment he'd deactivated the security system. He wondered if his reserve house energy cells needed recharging as he settled back into his room.

Billy took out a wrist comm from one of his trunks and snapped it into place, bringing up a holo screen for a nearby furniture store. He placed a rush order for another twin-sized bed, a dresser, and a vanity for Samus, then flipped over to a home goods store's site and tried to think of what a girl of her age would need. He used what guesswork he could think of to fill out an order, and rush processed another order from there before using the comms function to put out a call to an old friend. A video connection showed as available, so he selected that, and was met seven seconds later by a cheerful, pixie-faced young woman looking back at him over the connection, her curly, fiery red hair bouncing about as she pushed it out of her face. "Billy," she gasped. "Oh my god, Billy, it's you," the woman squeaked.

"Hi, Sandy. I'm home," he said. "Listen, I need some help over here. Any chance you could swing by for a little while, help me get things figured out?"

"Oh, of course, Billy," she replied. He could see the inside of Sandy's shuttle behind her on the screen. It was a modest vessel, and though it was capable of traveling within the Westrin system, she rarely left Verton Prime. "What's the situation?" Billy launched into a brief explanation, after which Sandy laughed raucously. "Oh, man, this is too good! Billy Aran, the 'verse's biggest commitment-phobe, has to raise a little girl! Oh, man, yeah, I'll swing by in a few minutes," she said.

Billy cut the line, and as he got up to go speak to Samus, he found her standing in his bedroom doorway. "How long've you been standing there," he asked.

"A few minutes," she said quietly. Billy looked down at his lap, going over what precisely he'd said to Sandy. One phrase came to mind that would explain the sad look in the girl's eyes- 'I don't know how to raise a kid, and now I'm stuck with one', he'd said. "Do you not want me here," she asked.

"Samus, it isn't like that," Billy said, running his hand through his hair, slouching over his knees. "I just, I don't really know what I'm doing here. My friend Sandra, she used to work with kids about your age. I just want to do what's right by you." He looked at her, and saw that she was nodding, not looking directly at him.

"That's logical," she said. "You don't have the necessary knowledge to handle the situation at hand, so you're referring to someone with expertise." Billy shrugged, stood up. Samus cocked her head to one side, and gave him a grin he didn't understand.

"What," he asked.

"That's what a good father would do," Samus said, turning and heading back to her bedroom. Billy scoffed, shook his head, and went out to the front porch to wait for Sandy to arrive.

#

#

It was nearly a half an hour later when Sandy's hover arrived, setting down twenty yards away from the front door. It was the same maroon throwback she'd had when last he'd been home, and the sight of it threw him momentarily into the land of Ago, thinking on the smuggling runs he'd made with her shortly after she'd bought the vehicle. She'd been grateful for the money, and they'd had some good times, but both had agreed afterward that things couldn't go further in a romantic direction; they just wanted different things out of life. She was content to be a planetsider, whereas Billy needed the freedom of space travel, the allure of never being a hundred percent certain what lay ahead of him.

The side hatch slid open, and out stepped Sandy, a tall, lithe figure exuding grace in all of her movements, her crimson hair bouncing up and down as she beamed a huge smile at Billy. Halfway to the porch she began jogging toward him, arms out for an embrace. "Sandyyyyy," Billy called out, rising from his seat and coming down the steps to meet her. He wrapped her in a huge hug as she collided with him, laughing aloud joyfully. "By the gods, Sandy, it's good to see you and that rustbucket again!"

"Hey, that rustbucket has seen me to a lot of work," she said, pulling away, but cupping his face in her hands. "Hey, is that a new scar," she said, peering just under his left ear.

"Yeah, had a bit of a run-in with some Space Pirates about a year and a half ago," Billy said. "I heard their big reptile friend is in the system."

"Shit, that," she replied, following Billy inside the house. He guided her to the kitchen, a warm, clean white space he kept only stocked with dehydrated foodstuffs between stays. "You got any coffee yet," she asked as she sat at the small round wooden table he kept.

"Just the dehydrated stuff, sorry," he said.

"That's fine, caffeine's caffeine," she replied. Billy set about putting it together, then sat across from her, opening a drawer on the underside of the table and pulling out an ashtray for her. She dutifully produced a pack of cigarettes from her small blue purse and lit it, chuffing out a stream of smoke. "Ah, shit, is it even okay to smoke in here, what with a kid and everything?"

"My mother smoked," Samus said behind her, standing in the kitchen doorway. Sandy turned in her seat and smiled at the green-haired girl. "It's all right. I'm not bothered by it."

"Well, that's good," Sandy said. She motioned for Samus to take one of the other chairs at the table with her and Billy. "I'm Sandy." Samus sat down with them and nodded. Sandy gave her a brief once-over visually. "You're going to be tall when you get older."

"That's common among Svestri offspring," Samus said. "Particularly females. Males don't grow as tall, but their muscle mass expounds to rates never seen in non-mutated humans." She looked to Billy for a moment. "Can I have a drink?"

"Yeah, there's soda I brought in from the ship in the fridge," he said. As Samus sat back down, Billy cleared his throat. "Now, Samus, Sandy's going to talk to you for a little bit, okay? I'm going to go take care of a few things in town, get you set up for school and for the registration office. Will you be okay here with her?"

"You trust her, so yes, I will be fine," Samus said evenly. Billy and Sandy shared a quick look, and Billy hauled himself up to head into town.

"Don't abuse the throttle," Sandy said to Billy as he headed out to her shuttle. Sandy fetched herself a cup of the coffee he'd made and sat back down after adding sugar and powdered creamer. "So, Samus, what can you tell me about yourself," Sandy asked.

"Physical statistics, ma'am? I'm nine years of age, pre-pubescent female, four-foot-three, seventy-eight pounds. My estrogen levels are in fluctuation, likely in preparation for preliminary menstruation brought on by altered genetic coding," she said. Sandy gasped, half choking on coffee as she let loose with awkward laughter.

"Jesus, honey, that's not what I meant! Oh, ha ha ha, no, sweetie, no," she said, shaking her head, snorting. "I meant more, what do you like to do, have you ever been in school, do you like a particular kind of animal, stuff like that." Sandy shook her head again, her chuckles tapering off.

"Well," Samus said, looking off into space, eyes wide, light shimmering off of them from overhead. "I read a lot. Novels, short stories, technical manuals and the like."

"Technical manuals? Why?"

"I like to know how things work," Samus said plainly. "Your shuttle, for instance, is an SV-G1 model, built by Veslo Industries in the Kammer system. They were very popular until about seventeen years ago, when faulty fuel cell processing units were discovered to cause significant power loss resulting in crashes." Sandy blinked rapidly at her, leaning back in her seat.

"How, how did you know that," she asked.

"I've seen them before, when I was living with my mother. We were on Hermes Station in First Earth system, and some of her business partners used them to take things back and forth from one planet to the other, and a lot of times to the station itself, into gamma section, where the poor folks lived. I researched the shuttles for my mom, she was thinking about buying one, but she decided not to when I told her about the fuel cell problem. I imagine yours has already had the recommended alterations made to ensure its safe function." Sandy nodded, one eyebrow raised at the girl.

"Yeah, I did," Sandy said. She looked down into her coffee for a long moment. "Um, anything else?"

"I like sim games," Samus said, and here Sandy breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, she thought, some familiar territory.

"What's your favorite?"

"Hmm, 'Soldiers of Asteri'," Samus said. She launched into a detailed account of her playing the game, and Sandy welcomed the more natural flow of conversation here.

Billy handed Sandy a fresh cup of coffee, then sat across from her on the porch, sighing as he settled into his chair. The furniture movers were carrying Samus's new bed and vanity inside between them, and he waited until they were inside before he leaned toward Sandy and asked, "So? What do you think?"

"I think you've got a wonderfully intelligent little girl in there who is, perhaps, never going to fit in with the normal sort of folks you and I come across." She sipped her coffee slowly, not looking over at Billy. "No matter where she goes, where you take her, what she does, she's always going to stand out from the rest of the crowd. It isn't going to necessarily be a good thing." Billy grumbled wordlessly, shaking his head. Sandy reached over, rubbing his shoulder gently. "I know, not exactly what you were hoping to hear, but you would prefer an ugly truth to a pretty lie, wouldn't you?"

"Any day of the calendar, yes," he replied, still glum. "Integration is going to be my primary concern for her in about a week. She can't just drift through the days without some sort of direction."

"School?" Billy nodded. Sandy bit the corner of her lip, a nervous habit she'd picked up long before she ever met him. "Billy, she's a Svestri, and much as I'd love to think the people of my home world are more open-minded than most backwater rock folks, the truth is, they aren't going to accept her."

"The hell they won't," Billy snarled. "I pay my dues to the local councils. She's born of my blood, my natural daughter, and she isn't going to be pushed aside just because of what her mother was. She can't help she was born Svestri."

"That doesn't mean people are going to make it easy on her, hon." Billy shook his head, jaw clenched.

"What do you think of her otherwise, though? I mean, I knew from the word 'go' that things were going to be different for her, harder than for normal children. I want to know what your impression of her is as a personality."

"Hmm. Well, as to that, she's clearly going to be an intellectually stimulated child. She shows tremendous aptitude for understanding changes in situations and adapts to them quickly, even in casual conversation. She seems eager to please, but she also seems to me more comfortable in a submissive or passive role in interpersonal relationships and interactions. She's going to likely be pretty shy if and when you can get her enrolled in school. You can expect her to be teased for what she is, but I doubt she's going to do much of anything to defend herself. She'll defer to other people's judgments and back down from most confrontations, I expect." Billy sipped his coffee, nodding, looking out at the expanses of greenery surrounding his humble property.

"Perhaps she'll benefit from that for the time being," he said. "She can observe her surroundings, the people around her, and make the necessary adjustments as she goes. A bit of caution up front can save her a headache down the line." Sandy concurred with that, then got up from her seat. "Taking off, dear?"

"Just for now," Sandy said. "I've got some things to take care of at my own homestead. If you need anything, Billy, I mean anything at all, you let me know. And let Samus know that she can call me too. She needs people to talk to besides you. No offense, but no kid should be stuck with just their parents to interact with. It makes for some strange folks." Billy agreed and gave her a powerful embrace before watching her speed away in her hover. He watched her until the vehicle was out of sight, then headed inside. He found Samus sitting in the kitchen, a book open before her on the table, a small stuffed cat tucked in the crook of her right arm. It had been one of the purchases he'd made for her at the station, and she hadn't shown much interest in it until just now. He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat down across from her, offering a gentle smile.

"So, what're you reading there, kiddo," he asked her.

"It's called '_The Rogue and the Imp'_. It's supposed to be a classic. I'm liking it thus far. There are all kinds of critters and stuff in it."

"Magic, swords and such?"

"Yeah. I've read a couple of books like it before, but this one's more cleverly written, more grown-up. The others were kind of light on details." Billy got up and fetched her a drink, setting the glass down near to hand for her. "Thanks," she said, still glued to her book. After another minute of quiet, she looked up at him, a curious expression pasted to her face. "Sir? There's a word here I don't know."

"Doesn't happen very often, does it," he replied with a grin.

"No, not really. What's an 'arena'?"

"Ah, that," Billy said. "Well, in ancient times, back on First Earth, there were these large outdoor theaters. You know what a theater is?"

"Yes, I've been to a few with Mother."

"Well, it was a theater set outside, but instead of showing movies, there were real live people engaging in competitions and tournaments. Sometimes, in some arenas, people would fight one another for the entertainment of the crowds. In a few places, the people who fought were forced to."

"Why?"

"Well, they were gladiators. It's a fancy word for a slave whose life is lived in order to participate in these fights to the death." Samus furrowed her brow and shook her head.

"That sounds barbaric. Do they still have arenas in the 'verse?"

"In some few places," Billy said. "The Space Pirates keep fighting pits on a few of their stronghold planetoids. Mostly they video record a few exhibition fights of captives so they can force the hands of potential ransom-payers. But don't think that means they're common, Samus dear. They're almost a thing completely done in the 'verse. But if you do as much reading as I figure you're going to in the next few years, I imagine you're going to come across the phrase quite a bit, particularly in that genre."

Samus nodded, sipped her drink, and buried herself in her book once more. Billy left her to her reading, checking on the movers' progress. They appeared to be setting up the footboard on her bed, and all else had been seen to and put to rights insofar as arrangements were concerned. They were stern-faced, stout men, the sort accustomed and fitted to grunt physical labor. Their natural body language spoke of long experience in such work. Billy felt a small gnawing at the back of his mind, a tug of instinct that he never ignored. He stood in the doorway and pushed his hands into his pockets, making a show of watching them at their work. He noted a tattoo peeking out of the shirt sleeve of the larger of the two men, and knew for a certainty that his instincts hadn't guided him wrong.

The tattoo was a black anchor with a sword above and below it, the mark of the Space Pirates.

When the men had finished up, the smaller of the two men presented Billy with a datapad for signature, and Billy signed it swiftly. When the men were gone, he swept into the kitchen and stood looming over Samus. She looked up at him, one eyebrow cocked. "Yes, sir?"

"Rule number two, dear child; always keep your guard up."


	3. Early Days Chapter 3- Schooling

Getting Samus enrolled in school had turned out to be an even bigger bitch kitty than Billy had assumed it would be from the get-go. The fact that she was Svestri had only been a portion of the problem; the fact that she'd never undertaken any formal education before comprised the vast majority of the issues. Without any registration records, and having not done any kind of testing, nobody had a point of reference for knowing where she should begin her coursework. Most girls her age were in their fifth or sixth year of school; testing placed her in the eighth grade, however, which would make her the youngest in her class. Getting all of the necessary materials for her classes took Billy and Samus into town in his own hover, a small Gelser Class 2 shuttle he'd been keeping at a repair bay since the last time he'd been planetside. There wasn't much that he couldn't handle, but buying school supplies baffled him. He'd never had to make mundane purchases beyond grocery shopping, so errands like this left him afield of what he knew. Samus seemed to be well-suited to it, however, easily navigating through the stores without a hiccup.

It was a few days before she was to actually start going to classes when Billy awoke her dressed in his old Parker Mark 2 armor suit, a plasma rifle slung over one shoulder. Samus felt his free hand shake her gently and rolled onto her back, yawning and stretching before opening her eyes. When she saw him, her eyes widened, taking in her surroundings swiftly. Billy kept his expression as blank and neutral as possible, looking down at her. "No child of mine is going to live a life of safe days, Samus," he said evenly. "It's important that you know that. I have made a lot of enemies over the years, doing the work that I do, and some of those enemies are even here on this planet. In order to get to me, some may consider trying to abduct and hold you for ransom, especially once they learn that you're my kid."

"I understand."

"I don't think you do, but you will, in short order," Billy said. "School is not the only place where you're going to be receiving instruction, child. I will be training you as well. If you don't want that, then I'd recommend you tell me so right now, and I'll start looking for a bodyguard to hire on full-time for you." Samus sat up in the bed, shook her head.

"No, I would prefer not to inconvenience you like that, personally or financially, sir," she said. "I will take this instruction you propose." Billy nodded. "May I use the facilities before we begin this lesson? I have to urinate." Billy allowed her to use the bathroom, after which she returned to the bed and sat down, legs dangling over the side. Billy crouched down and sighed.

"Okay. For this lesson, I'm going to be using the home defense system to simulate an abduction holding. You've already been grabbed and tucked away, but you are somewhat familiar with the location where you're being held. We're easing into this, okay? Your task is to try and get out of the house without me subduing you. You'll have one hour once the exercise begins. Understood?" Samus nodded. Billy tousled her hair, then left the room, the distinct sound of an energy lock engaging over the door thrumming through the air. Samus immediately turned to her own bedroom window, but found that the transteel security shutters had been engaged, blocking that path. She looked around her room, searching for tools she could use in her escape.

When she spotted the backpack she'd already packed with school supplies sitting by the closet door, she smiled to herself. "Bingo," she said.

Billy made a slow, steady circuit of the house with his plasma rifle set to 'stun', checking his wrist pad every couple of minutes to see how much time Samus had left. As he came back to the hallway fourteen minutes into the exercise, he paused for a moment, looking at her bedroom doorway. There was something off about it, so he decided to take a closer look. Kneeling down, Billy saw that there were faint scuff marks on the hardwood floor from her door. _She's out,_ he thought. _The question now is, where did she head to?_ Billy had lowered the security shutters on all of the windows in the house, leaving the front door as the only real means of ingress or egress from the house. Over that he'd activated a repulsor shield, the access panel in plain sight if he should pass by or through the living room. If he spotted Samus at the panel, he would stun her with a quick shot, and the exercise would be over.

He was just considering that when he heard a creak of floorboards, coming from further down the hallway, in the bathroom. Billy moved forward in a half-crouch, rifle at the ready. He swept into the bathroom, sighting down the barrel, but found it empty. He cocked his head to one side, noting the shower curtain drawn shut on the tub. He stalked over to it, whipping the curtain aside and aiming down into the tub-

At the stuffed cat Samus had taken to clutching and carrying around the house. Curious, he reached down and picked it up, yelping and dropping it as something on the plush pricked his palm. Billy looked at his hand, saw a single droplet of blood, and felt his head start to swell and pulse. His limbs grew weak, and quickly the bathroom began to dissolve around him into various blurs of color and indistinct shapes. As he fell over onto the hard white tiles of the bathroom floor, he managed to catch a glimpse of one last vague form looming over him, a blurry, humanoid figure with long, green hair.

The figure was using a bobby pin to remove his wrist pad from his arm, a procedure she managed before he passed out. Then, darkness swept over Billy.

When he came to, Billy's head was throbbing as if he'd spent the night at a non-stop heavy metal concert, standing right next to one of the giant, tower-like speakers the roadies would set up in the hopes of pleasing their employers and possibly getting some secondhand tail passed their way at the end of the night. He groaned as he sat up, discovering that his rifle was missing, along with his wrist pad and his stun baton. He got to his feet and stumbled out of the bathroom, feeling flooding back painfully into his feet. His legs had been twisted together when he fell, partially cutting off circulation to his feet because of the PM2 suit's design. He made his way toward the front door, which stood wide open. Stepping out onto the porch, he heard the whine of his plasma rifle charging up to his left, using only his eyes to look over. Samus sat in one of the deck chairs, his wrist pad mounted on her own forearm, his rifle in her hands, a cold, dead look in her eyes. He recognized that glare- it was the cool, calculated expression of someone who could and would kill, given the slightest provocation.

"Did I pass the exercise," she asked flatly, her voice all frozen iron in a little girl's register. Somehow, that just made her words all the more disturbing.

"Sure did," Billy replied. And as quick as that, Samus's expression went flat once more, and she powered down his weapon, setting it aside and detaching his wrist pad. She sprang out of the chair and handed it back up to him. Billy let out a sigh of relief, snapping the pad back in place. "What the hell did you dose me with, Samus," he asked, readjusting the mounting strap on his device.

"Well, for my biology classes, you had to buy me a vial of darvo frog venom. I remembered reading that in its distilled format, the venom causes swift unconsciousness. So, I emptied the vial into a bottle of water I had in my backpack, shook it, and then dipped a sewing needle in the admixture. That needle I then slipped into my Mica, knowing that if you saw it, you'd pick it up out of pure curiosity. Well, I didn't _know_ you would, but I know how observant you are and how you tend to respond to unexpected circumstances. You like to investigate all possible angles, so it was highly likely that you'd grab the cat."

"Okay, that explains that," said Billy. "But how did you get out of your room?"

"Oh, that," she said, reaching around behind her own back and grabbing her other elbow, swinging side-to-side like an embarrassed little girl. _Which she is, _Billy thought to himself. _She's just a girl, but she's far more than that, and I would do well to remember that. She's Svestri, and my child._ "Um, I kind of punched a hole in the wall and shorted out the power supply from the security system to the door. I waited until I heard your footsteps fade off toward the front of the house, so you wouldn't hear the impact." She looked down and scuffed one foot on the floor. "Sorry about the wall." Billy snorted a laugh, shaking his head.

"I'll patch that in a jiff, child, nothing to worry about there. So, you'll be needing some new venom, eh?"

"Yes, sir," she replied. Billy tousled her hair again, and took her out to the nearby town once more to purchase a replacement vial of the venom. The whole way she kept herself immersed in her book, but Billy didn't mind. He was too proud of her to mind.

That pride turned to ashes in his mouth a few days later. He'd seen Samus off on the school shuttle that came by to pick her up, watching as she slipped into one of the seats on his side of the vehicle alone, though there were plenty of other children already on the vessel. She waved good-bye to him briefly, then faced forward like a porcelain doll, her affect completely flat. Before she was even out of sight, he had a feeling that it was going to go hard on her.

He received a video call from her school two and a half hours later, asking him if he could come down and speak with the principal about Samus. Billy hopped in his shuttle after making himself presentable in slacks and a simple blue button shirt, keeping a hold-out laser pistol holstered at his ankle, hidden under his pants, and a vibro-knife tucked at the small of his back. He took a pulse shield emitter as well, strapped to his right wrist, camouflaged as a wrist watch. Sure, it was just a school he was going to, but with Space Pirates hiding planetside for reasons he wasn't sure of, he didn't want to take any chances.

He was at the school half an hour later, a concrete block on the outside, but a lively, colorful environment inside the structure. It looked and sounded like the middle schools he remembered attending as a kid, though he'd bounced from one to another so frequently that he couldn't remember any one particularly better than another, but the feeling was similar. Behind the sounds of classroom lectures and instruction came the burble of hormonally challenged teenagers awkwardly struggling with the early changes from childhood into adolescence. There was a _stench_ as well, sweat mingled with cheap perfume and cologne and general anxiety. He didn't envy any of these kids.

Signs hung overhead in the halls guided him to the principal's office. Stepping through the door, he found himself in an antechamber, where sat a stick figure of a woman in a plain blouse and black skirt, clacking away on a computer terminal. He cleared his throat meaningfully, and she looked up at him, her bright green eyes flashing with easy mirth. "Well hello there! Can I help you?"

"Billy Aren, I got a call from principal Balleck," he said. The secretary nodded and reached for an intercom.

"Sir, Mr. Aren is here for you," she said.

"Send him in," came the reply. Billy headed back around the woman's desk and entered a small, stuffy office with a squat oak desk. Behind it sat a man who looked to have ancestry that might lead one to believe a pitbull had at some point been introduced to the family bloodline, his body frame built more for a pit fighter than an educator. Balleck wore a dark brown business suit and a pale yellow button shirt, his bald pate shining in the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead. He didn't smile at Billy, only opting instead to make a finger crooking motion that told the bounty hunter to shut the door. He did so, then sat across from him.

"Mr. Balleck," Billy said, nodding in deference.

"Mr. Aren." Balleck leaned back in his chair and sighed. "My assistant principal did not, I assume, give you details about why you've been called in here?"

"No, he didn't," said Billy. "Is Samus okay? Did something happen to her?"

"Nothing like that, the girl's fine," said Balleck. Billy didn't miss the way the principal referred to her as _the girl_, instead of 'your child' or 'Samus'. The burly man looked about, jaw clenching and unclenching, his body language screaming that he was uncomfortable with either where this conversation was going to go, or with Billy himself. The bounty hunter allowed how that could be; though he was dressed in civvies, Billy carried an almost constant aura of combativeness with him wherever he went, no matter the circumstances.

"Then why did you need me to come down here, Mr. Balleck?"

"Well, there've been a few complaints," Balleck said.

"Already? She's only been here a few hours," Billy snapped, leaning forward in his chair slightly. _Put him on the defensive, let him see me as the problem, not her,_ he thought. "What could she possibly have done in that little time to upset anybody?"

"She hasn't done anything wrong, per se," said Balleck. "Some of her classmates have been in to see me, and the first two teachers she's worked with thus far. Mr. Aren, she answers every question asked of the class, and she has been launching into long-winded explanations of her replies. When one of her classmates in galactic history answered a question incorrectly, she didn't wait to correct him. The boy felt rather embarrassed as a result. When that class let out, in the hallway, the boy tried to ask her how she'd known the answer. He tried to turn her around to get her attention, and she summarily placed him in a rather violent arm bar, shoving him away into a locker before heading to her next class."

Billy eased back in his chair with a sigh. "So, isn't that 'doing something wrong', Mr. Balleck?"

"Not really. The boy is unharmed, physically, but he was frightened, as were most of the students who observed the incident. She's in her fourth class right now, but nobody would partner with her in planet sciences class for a lab experiment, her third class. I called you down here because she's already being ostracized, which you stressed as a primary concern when you came to speak with us in the first place to enroll her." Billy understood now why Balleck was ill-at-ease. Here was a new parent with a child freshly registered for classes, who had voiced a major concern, and within hours, that concern had reared its ugly head. There were other schools in the area, and each one received additional funds for each new student they enrolled. However, that money would be taken away if the child transferred districts in less than thirty days.

"I understand your concern, then," Billy said with a sigh. "Is there any way I can talk to her, have her pulled from class for a few minutes?" Balleck nodded and had his secretary put out a call for Samus. He offered Billy the office, and when Samus came in, looking small and frail, demure in her plain white blouse and long brown skirt, Billy took up Balleck's seat across the desk from her. "Shut the door, child," he said as she entered. She did so, then took up the spot he'd just been in. Billy leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and sighed. "Samus, did you put a boy in an arm bar?"

"He grabbed me," she replied. "I only did what was natural to me. I felt threatened momentarily. I had already embarrassed George, and I assumed that he sought to mete out his own form of punishment for doing so." She looked aside. "I apologize for having caused trouble, sir."

"Samus, child, you only did what seemed natural, and I'm not like to hold that against you. I'd be a piss-poor excuse for a father if I did. But you have to know that in some places, you cannot behave this way. That includes here, in school."

"I understand, sir."

"You need to realize that not all children are like you. Most of them aren't ready for hostility or confrontation like you are. Trust your instincts, child, but learn how to identify genuine threats before reacting to them. Even if it's only a split second you take to consider the situation, that's always better than overreacting and ending up having to explain yourself. In most places here, you aren't going to come across anyone who wants to hurt you. And when someone does try something here, they're like to be another child. Try not to hurt them."

"I understand, sir. I will implement a new reaction habit for myself. I have no reason to suspect any of my classmates of wanting to do me harm, but I must admit, I do not think they like me much."

"Well, nobody loves a know-it-all, my dear. You have to sometimes let questions go unanswered in class, or give other students a chance to respond to your instructors. Observe the other children, and try to blend in more. You aren't ever going to be exactly like them, but you can try to approximate their behavior. It would be best that way." Samus tilted her head to one side, stared off at nothing a moment, and nodded.

"Very good, sir. I will endeavor to behave more like my classmates, excepting where I deem such to be inappropriate. I have seen some of the other girls dressing rather provocatively, and some of them appear to be inclined toward physical promiscuity with the boys. I am a little young for such." Billy chuckled lightly and nodded.

"Yeah, I'd say so. Thank you for being understanding, Samus. I appreciate that this is all very new and very strange for you, but you won't always be alone or with me. You'll need to learn how to be around other people and interact with them. So, I won't get anymore calls from school today?"

"I suspect not, sir. Thank you." She rose from her seat and gave him a small curtsy, then left him alone in Balleck's office. He decided that another training exercise when she got home might put her back into her natural element, but he would have to devise one that would pose more of a challenge for her. Billy left the school then, heading for home to prepare for Samus's return.

Samus returned home that afternoon to find the house unoccupied. There was a note from her father on the kitchen table, written on a piece of paper in a hand that clearly wasn't accustomed to handwriting. She read it aloud to herself. "'Samus, I have arranged a new scenario for you. On your bed you will find a pulse pistol set to stun. Do not change the setting, by the love of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. I have taken your Myca, and will hold him captive until such time as you can find me and take him back. The only clue I give you is this; I am hiding somewhere in town nearby. You will have to gather information and track me down, and when you do, I will not be like to hand your kitty cat over without a fight. Use whatever resources you can in order to locate me. You have until mid-moon to complete this test.'"

Samus walked to her bedroom, where she found the pulse pistol on her bed, as her father had written. She checked the setting, which was on stun, and set the weapon back down. She headed into his bedroom then, poking into his closet to grab a spare weapons belt. She took one of his stun batons, used one of the empty holsters for the pistol, and then searched in his trunks for one of his three spare wrist pads. She strapped it on and immediately began scrolling through his radar database, filtering through for his most commonly visited locations. She cross-referenced this data with planetside mission logs he'd kept on record, and narrowed down her first set of likely locations to three spots.

The nearby town was only ten minutes away by shuttle, but she was not authorized to operate such a vehicle. However, Billy's instructions had been clear; she could use whatever resources she could muster. Samus headed to the living room and activated one of the wall panels, placing a call to Sandy. Her father's red-headed friend picked up on video after only a couple of rings, and she looked surprised to see the girl. "Hey there, kiddo, how was your first day of school?"

"It was just fine," she replied. "My father isn't home, though, I think he's in town. Is there any way you could swing by and take me there? Even if I shouldn't come across him, it would be nice to take in the sights. I haven't been yet, except to get some things for school." Sandy beamed at her.

"Well of course, honey! I'm not really doing much right now myself. We can grab a light dinner when we get into town, there's a nice little place your father and I used to go all the time. I'll swing by in about twenty minutes, kiddo. That work for you?"

"Yes, thank you," said Samus, cutting the connection. She quickly changed her clothes, settling on a pair of plain jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt, over which she donned a black long coat, so as to conceal her weaponry. She waited for Sandy out on the porch, and soon enough, Sandy's crimson shuttle swooped down in front of the house. The two were then quickly away, Sandy babbling energetically about how important it was that Samus have a positive female role model in her life, and that while she didn't presume to act as such for her, she was hopeful that they could at least become good friends. Samus only paid a little attention to her as she blathered on, listening for any key phrases that might send up a red flag for her training exercise. Elsewise, she concentrated on using a stealth hack from her wrist pad on Sandy's personal comms device, utilizing the wireless connectivity between the two devices. With her attention on the skies and ground ahead of them, the red-head couldn't possibly notice what was happening, but Samus wanted to make it as quick as possible.

She was finished with the hack by the time they landed in the rear parking area of a small bistro in the middle of town. Sandy led her inside, now asking her questions about her day's lessons in school, all of which Samus answered succinctly but politely. The bistro was full of wonderful smells and the buzz of light conversation among the clientele, none of whose conversations touched on anything Samus deemed important. However, she did make note of one of the male customers seated at the bar, a lone man whom she recognized as one of the men who'd delivered her furniture. His clothes were much different now, but she recognized the small eye tattoo on the back of the man's neck, and the profile of his face. Was he a local resident? She didn't know, but she filed him away as someone to keep an eye out for.

Sandy ordered a soup and sandwich for herself, and Samus got the same order, letting Sandy launch into a story about the times she'd spent with her father when they were younger. Samus once more put on the façade of paying attention, excusing herself to the restroom after a few minutes. In the ladies room, she occupied a stall and used her wrist pad to activate the hack she'd planted, sending a brief text message to Billy's personal comms from Sandy's own. The message was simple- 'What're you up to, Billy?' It took only a minute for her father to respond.

'Doing a training exercise with Samus. Can't really talk right now,' was his reply. Samus accessed a geo-mapping inference program, backtracking his reply message. In the event he should be running any kind of anti-tracing program on his comms device, it would at best inform him that Sandy was trying to locate him, perchance for a get-together. He wouldn't jump to the assumption that Samus was getting a jump on him, most like. However, her tracing program came back with a reading that was skewed, giving her only a radial approximation. Using a real-time satellite imaging system, she got an aerial shot of the area he was located within.

Quickly she used the toilet and washed her hands, nipping back out into the dining area with Sandy to finish her humble meal. Afterwards, the pair walked down the town's main thoroughfare, window-shopping while Samus occasionally checked on her programs. At one juncture, as they were about to pass in front of an alley mouth, Samus slipped her stun baton out and clicked it on, giving Sandy a quick, largely harmless tap on the thigh. The jolt felled the larger woman instantly, but Samus was right there to catch her and drag her into the alley. The Svestri girl made a quick inspection of the narrow pathway, checking to insure herself that Billy's friend would come to no harm being left alone for the short time she'd be unconscious. When she was well satisfied that nobody would cause her trouble, Samus tucked Sandy into the minute gap between a dumpster and an alley wall, concealing her location with some abandoned wood pallets left leaning nearby.

With the pulse pistol in hand, she slipped cat-like further down the alley, making certain that she kept her footsteps light and devoid of sound. The alley itself hadn't looked any more likely than any of the possible pathways Billy could be found down, but one thing made her certain this was the way to him- scraps of an orange peel peppered the alley floor. She had observed that these were her father's favorite random snack food, and he had a habit of dropping the peel scraps on the ground wherever he went when eating one out in public. Once again, this was a resource that she had access to that might be seen as unfair in most cases; she had intimate knowledge of her target's habits.

Still, he hadn't forbade her to use such clues. Quickly she located a set of steps leading down into an underground club of some sort. The neon tube sign over the door was off, but she didn't worry about that. Down the steps she swept, pulling a bobby pin and screwdriver from her coat pockets, winkling her way through the lock in less than ten seconds. The video tutorial on picking such simple tumble locks had been very thorough, however, so she wasn't exactly surprised with her capability.

Samus crept through the door with as little movement as possible, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom within the club for a minute. The place reminded her of some of the bars she'd recovered her mother from after she'd gone out for 'a few drinks with friends'. The memory of her mother made her pause for a moment, thinking back on those taverns and dives. The man she'd noticed earlier at the bistro had the look of some of those men her mother had socialized with. Or rather, the men she tried to _avoid_ socializing with, men she'd warned Samus to stay away from.

She decided then and there to tell her father about the man from the bistro and furniture company. After the exercise, of course. She kept herself moving forward in a low half-crouch, listening for any sign of motion elsewhere in the club. Samus was starting to wonder if she might have been off the mark when she heard Billy coughing to clear his throat somewhere near the back of the bar. She moved around the serving counter and saw a door marked with the word 'Office'. If Billy were located near the back of the office, she wouldn't be able to easily get the drop on him. She couldn't very well barge through the door and try to take him on by sheer force; even as a Svestri, she was only nine, and he was a fully grown man, equipped with an impressive defense system and decades of combat experience.

Her only options seemed to be either doomed for failure, or lethal in nature. Unless…

Billy pulled his feet down from the owner's desk and popped another cookie in his mouth, chewing slowly, savoring the peace and quiet. He'd made sure to let himself be seen as his usual haunts around town, and he had every confidence that Samus would soon be making her circuitous way around the various contacts he had out and about, trying to narrow her way to his hiding place. He smiled to think of the circles she would be running shortly. He'd had to run those same circles himself scores of times when tracking down a bounty head. It would help her in the long run to get accustomed to such hardships. He sipped some of his soda and got up, his bladder alerting him to certain biological needs to be tended to.

Billy got up and headed out of the office, slipping between the tables to the men's room, leaving his weapons and the stuffed cat in the room behind him. He pushed his way into the men's room, humming to himself until he spotted the other person in the room with him, his hand on the protective plate over his groin in preparation for taking a piss. "Aww, shit," he mumbled as Samus aimed the pulse pistol at him and fired a single stun shot, dropping him once again into the darkness of unconsciousness.

Billy tried to keep up as Samus showed him the programs and subroutines she had run to piggyback off of Sandy's comms device, but he quickly found himself completely lost. Sandy didn't seem to be faring any better, but both adults exchanged a meaningful look that spoke volumes. The Svestri girl might not be socially skilled, and she would be no match for a grown man or woman in a fair fight, but she would likely never be faced with such an encounter. Given any chance whatsoever to prepare in advance for a confrontation, she would leave nothing but corpses and broken men in her wake.

When she was finished showing them her work, Samus gave them a blank look. "Neither one of you understand anything I just showed you, do you," she asked.

"I sure as hell don't," said Billy. "I might, if you slowed down and gave me a few pointers that weren't in technical jargon, but it hardly matters, child. I'm not the best with this kind of stuff to begin with." He got up out of his chair at the kitchen table and did a few stretches, rubbing the back of his head where it had struck the bathroom floor in the nightclub after Samus had stunned him.

"It's very impressive that you can do things like this, dear," said Sandy. "I know plenty of adults who aren't nearly as skilled as you at these sorts of end-runs, and some of them are programmers. I don't think they could do what you did."

"It's not top-of-the-line hacking or anything like that," Samus said, shutting down her displays and setting the wrist pad back to rights before removing it. She went to hand it back to Billy, who put up a hand to stop her.

"That's all right, Samus," he said, grinning. "You can keep that one. Make it your own, use it however you can. It's a few models out of date, but I don't think that's exactly going to hinder you." Samus nodded and headed off, quietly humming to herself as she left the kitchen. Billy resumed his seat and gave Sandy a searching look. "I'm going to spend the rest of my days with this child trying not to feel like an idiot."

"An effort that will more often than not fall short, I suspect," Sandy replied. She gathered her purse and gave Billy a quick peck on the cheek. "If Samus contacts me again to come by when you aren't here, I'll be sure to ask if you're doing a training exercise before coming. Have a good night, Billy. Call me." Billy Aran took himself to the small living room then, turning on his vid screen to watch some mindless programming before heading off for a shower and bed. After a couple of shows, he headed back toward the bathroom, stopping for just a moment at Samus's door, which was cracked just a few inches open. He peeked in and found his daughter propped up in bed, her nose buried in a book yet again. He smiled, and went to finish up his day.

The burly stranger stalked along the darkened downtown streets, trying to affect a drunken gait that would make most folks avoid him. He didn't need to draw anyone's attention right now. Nobody in the group needed any of the trouble that would come with additional scrutiny. Several of them had already been forced to confront and kill security forces deployed from the next nearby township, which had, for a short time, brought down more heat than any of them could deal with. They'd been forced to go into deep hiding for two months before regional forces moved on in their search, setting their timetable back.

Zeke had to get to the bunker, tonight. He had to warn the others that he'd confirmed what he thought he'd discovered days before. Among the many enemies the Space Pirates had in the 'verse, bounty hunters were among the most annoying, and some of them were considered genuine threats. Billy Aran was among those few, and now the group might finally have access to an exploitable weakness in the famed hunter's makeup- he had a daughter.

Zeke turned a corner, now heading north along the town's west side. In the benighted streets, most of the business and residential buildings around him looked the same. Tall, blocky structures devoid of any artistic appeal flanked him on both sides of the street, most of the businesses closed down for the night, their security lights running dimly behind metal shutters. As he came upon an alley mouth between two apartment buildings, a rail-thin woman in a black leather skirt, fishnet stockings and a yellow belly-exposing half shirt stepped from the darkness therein. Her wild blonde hair looked a mess, and she wore the overdone makeup of a tired, shabby prostitute. But the look in her eyes was one of sharp intelligence and guile, her mouth a crooked slash of red lipstick faintly parted to expose bright white teeth.

"You're late," she chided, hand on her hip, elbow cocked out.

"I had to make sure nobody was following me," Zeke replied quietly. "Darin here yet," he asked, following the woman down the alley. His eyes locked onto the sway of her hips, his mind partially wandering into perversion as he imagined taking her before going down into their bunker.

"He's here, along with Mesh, Ralph and Beaker." They were halfway down the alley when she gasped, feeling the raw strength in Zeke's hands as he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her back tight against him, chuckling darkly as she noticed the bulge in his pants pressed against her buttocks. She reached back and undid his zipper, slipping one hand in and grabbing his member. "Been missing me, big man," she rasped back at him, stroking slowly.

"That should be plain," Zeke replied, pushing her against an alley wall. "Anyone else have you tonight?"

"Just Beaker," she said, hiking up her skirt and dropping her panties down between her feet. "Jealous?" Zeke gave no audible reply, instead pulling her back so she was leaned forward, bracing herself on the wall as he pushed up inside of her. Grunting and groaning, they made short work of their coupling, with Zeke finishing off on the inside of her thighs. She giggled as she pulled her panties back up, taking a wet wipe from inside her small clutch purse to clean his seed off of her legs before pushing her skirt back down. He was zipping up when she turned back around and regarded him, her smile turned from clever to predatory. "Feeling better now?"

"Much," he replied, shaking his head as if to clear it. "I'm gonna head down. You got a heater," he asked. She pulled from her clutch a compact silver tube with a small handle, a neon green display along its side reading '70%'. The palm-sized laser pistol would do nothing to a man or woman in armor of any sort, but most of the potential threats she faced would have no such protection.

"Don't worry about me," she said, putting the weapon back. "I'll come down when Flash and Marlene get here."

"Thanks, Jen," said Zeke, heading alone now down the alley until he came to a rusted iron back door to the building on his right. He wrenched the door open, entering a dimly lit stairwell leading up. He walked back behind the stairs, where there was nothing to be seen but an unused storage area. Zeke pulled a small metal tube out of one of his pockets and clicked a button on it, illuminating a purple bulb on the end of the tube. In the strange purple light, a doorway seam was revealed on the floor under the steps, along with a digital number pad. He tapped in the access code, and the hatch released a hiss of air, the pneumatic hinges pushing the hatch open on a steep stairway leading down under the floor.

Zeke descended, the hatch shutting automatically behind him. At the bottom of the steps he came to a wide, circular commons room, outfitted with comfortable chairs and two loveseats, a giant vid screen showing late night news, and several data pads laid out on a coffee table. Archways stood across from the bottom of the steps and to their left, one hallway leading to the kitchen and bathroom, and the other to private bedchambers and a small armory. The Space Pirates kept bunkers similar to this one on several worlds in most systems, safe houses that could be relied upon to be kept stocked for their needs.

Sitting on one of the plush gray chairs was a creature Zeke both respected and feared, a man-like fellow with the sleek head of what could have passed for a leopard, gnarled, powerful hands with claw-tipped fingers grasping a thick book. He wore a white lab coat over a dark green button shirt and black khakis, his feet bare, more paw than foot, covered in yellowish fur. The creature looked up at Zeke and offered him a wry grin. "You made it, Zeke. Good to see you." Zeke nodded at him.

"Beaker," he said. The leopard-man, a member of a species known as turaki, turned his eyes back down to his book.

"Did you throw Jen a fuck before coming down? She's been in one of her moods lately," Beaker said, sounding bored.

"Truth be told, I needed it too, so yeah. Think she'll let Flash have a go too?"

"The way she's been these last couple of days, she'll probably try to wrangle Marlene into a threesome right there in the alley as a bonus," Beaker replied dryly. He looked over at Zeke as the big man took a seat, letting out a sigh. "She's an addict, Zeke. She can't help herself." Zeke shrugged, as if to say he didn't care. In truth, he really didn't, so long as her addiction allowed him to purge himself when the urge took him. He didn't need more headaches like he'd run into on Mar-Hivin III, so having Jen with his group was a blessing.

Zeke got up and headed into the large bunker kitchen, fetching himself a beer from the fridge. When he came back in, he felt Beaker's eyes boring into him, the turaki pirate's brow furrowed. "You have something for us tonight, don't you," he asked softly.

"I do," said Zeke. He cracked open the beer and took a long swig, wiping his mouth after. "I may as well tell you first, boss. I've confirmed that Billy Aran is back planetside." Beaker carefully set a bookmark into place, closed the book, and set it on the arm of his chair. He folded his hands in his lap, cleared his throat.

"Aran," Beaker said, nodding. "He's been a pain in our asses collectively for some time. Do you think he's here for us?"

"No," said Zeke, taking a smaller sip from his can. "He's got a kid with him. Some bastard girl he's stuck with now, a Svestri from the look of her." Beaker blinked at him, a viper's grin slowly creeping across his face. "An edge for the using, sir."

"An edge indeed," said Beaker. "We'll have to discuss this during the session. Be a friend and fetch me one of those," he said, returning his book to his lap, the grin now fixed for good and all. "I feel like having a celebratory drink.

The first week of school had finally come to an end, and Samus felt pleased with herself. She had taken her father's advice and begun trying to blend in more with the other students in her classes. It hadn't been a perfect transition, but she was no longer getting quite so many hostile or confused looks from her peers. Many of them seemed to have brushed off her initial oddity as the nervousness that comes from being the new kid in town. Billy praised her and tousled her hair when she told him about how much better things were going, then led her into the living room to have a seat with him on the couch across from the large vid screen.

He cracked a beer open, took a sip, and sighed contentedly. "Anything else you want to talk about, Samus," he asked casually.

"Yes. I believe there's a bad man hanging around town," she said evenly. Billy had been about to take a sip, lowered the can, and gave her his full attention.

"Go on," he said.

"He was one of the men who brought in my furniture when you first had it delivered," she said. "I saw him again when I was at the bistro with aunt Sandy. I know it was the same man from his facial profile, and I believe I saw a tattoo slip into view from his shirt sleeve while there."

"What did the tattoo look like," Billy asked, setting his beer aside on an end table. Samus looked up toward the ceiling, calling back the visual memory of that day.

"It was an anchor, of the sort used on ancient First Earth ships, with a sword above and below it," she said. When Samus looked at her father's face then, she felt a stone drop into her gut. "Father? You look disturbed."

"Space Pirates," he rasped, launching up off of the couch. He raced off toward his bedroom, leaving Samus seated on the couch, patiently waiting for him to return. When he came back a few minutes later, he was wearing his outdated armor suit, weapons bristling from every hook and hold slot along his belt and over his back. "Samus, get a bag together, you're going to spend the night with a friend of mine."

"Aunt Sandy?"

"No," said Billy, handing the girl a laser blaster set to 'wound'. "Go get your bag together, I'm going to make the arrangements." Samus nodded and moved to obey without another word, leaving Billy dialing the contact number of a man he hadn't spoken to in three years. When the video call connected, it showed a brightly lit workroom, various plates and wires and hoses standing out on several benches. Standing on the other side of one such table, a welding mask lifted up to reveal his face, stood an older gentleman with a graying, wild beard, large glasses, and mechanic's blue coveralls. His hands were covered in thick black gloves, but a command pad sat on the bench near his tools, and he smiled broadly at Billy.

"My goodness, William, it has been rather a long time, hasn't it," said the older mechanic in a gruff but cultured voice, reminiscent of a Yorkshire accent on First Earth.

"It has, Heph. Did you get the data packet I sent you a couple of weeks ago?"

"About your daughter? Yes, I reviewed it. I must say, I'm not surprised you haven't got a whole squadron of bastards pushing their way into your home by now," Heph said, setting his tools down, leaning toward the camera with a gentle grin. "There's some trouble, I take it?"

"Samus just told me she spotted a Space Pirate in town the other day," Billy said. "She didn't know it was one of them, but she spotted the tattoo and described it to me. I guess the guy gave her a bad vibe, she spotted him a couple of times. He was one of the men who delivered her furniture, Heph. They'll know by now about her." Heph pushed off of the bench and folded his arms over his chest, looking down and shaking his head, lips pursed.

"That's no good, William, no good at all. I had heard of sightings of Ridley in the system as well. But I presume that's not your chief concern right now."

"No. Look, she's putting together a bag for an overnight stay. Can I bring her to you?"

"Well yes, of course you can," said Heph jovially. "You know, my son was just here a week ago with his children, and I've been missing having the young company. It'll be nice to have someone else here again."

"Which son?"

"Gregory." Billy nodded, thinking, _Well, Greg's kids are normal boys. This isn't going to be so sweet for you, old friend._ "Jacob and his wife are out in the Visterna system, won't be coming this way for at least another three or four months. And Alice, well, you know how it is with newborns, she doesn't want to do much traveling with her little girl just yet."

"I get that. Okay, I'm going to go check on her. We'll see you soon," Billy said, shutting the connection. He hustled back for Samus's bedroom, and when he came into the doorway, she went from bending down to put something in her bag to spinning down and around into a defensive crouch, the blaster held up in a firing posture. _She knows how serious this is,_ Billy thought. _Good._ "Have you got what you need?"

"Just want to grab one more shirt," she replied, tucking the weapon away. When she was finished packing her bag, her stuffed cat's head poking ridiculously out of her left pants pocket, she grabbed her bag in her left hand, keeping her right hand free to grab the blaster. Billy led her outside, using his wrist pad to remotely call for his planetside hover, which they dashed to from the front door, both of them visually sweeping the area as they made their run for it.

Billy explained to Samus briefly during the flight that she would be going to stay the evening and night with one Michael Perch, whose friends referred to him as Heph, a reference to Hephaestus. Before he could further explain that, Samus recited the basic history of the Greek smith of the gods aloud, which made Billy grin despite his adrenal rush. "He's an armorer primarily," Billy said. "He's the one who made all of the modifications to my suit, and he's made me a few weapons and traps over the years as well. He's more an acquaintance than a true friend, but he's a trustworthy man, and that counts for everything with me."

After almost an hour's flight, Billy guided the hover down toward a sprawling ranch, in the center of which stood three large buildings. One was a farmhouse, one an oversized barn, and one a flat, squat structure made of what looked from above like slate black stone. As Billy brought the hover down to the ground, however, Samus could see dozens of small vessels parked in the black building, a sprawling garage of sorts. Keeping the hover a few yards off the ground, Billy brought his vehicle swiftly over to the front yard of the farmhouse. As he set down, Heph came ambling out of the house, still wearing his blue jumper but without his welding mask or gloves on. His short gray bristles lent his demeanor a full grandfatherly aura, fitting given the number of grandchildren he had.

Billy led Samus to the old man, who reached out one gnarled, work-worn hand to her. She put her own into it and shook with him, giving no visible sign of a reaction to him as yet. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, young lady," he said, taking a bow. "Your father tells me your name is Samus. You may call me Heph, or you may use the name my grandchildren take, which is Pops." Samus nodded, her rolling suitcase still held in hand. "Would you like me to bring your bag inside, Samus?"

"That won't be necessary, I can tend it," Samus said, looking up at Billy. "Will you be back for me soon, sir?" Billy saw a flash of something in Heph's face, but held his tongue for the nonce.

"As soon as I can, dear. Take your bag onto the porch and wait for Pops." Samus did as she was bade without comment, and Billy leaned in close to the older man to whisper, "Something the matter, Heph?

"She calls you 'sir', William. Since when does any child call their father 'sir', unless they come from a military family or have cold, distant figures for their parentage?" Billy folded his arms over his chest and shook lightly.

"Her mother wasn't cold in any sort of way, Heph, but she wasn't exactly parent of the year material," said Billy. "She's also a Svestri. They're not like other kids. A lot of them, especially the boys, tend to have some intellectual or personality problems, they can't socialize like normal people. Have you read any of the literature?"

"Hmm, some little bit," said Heph. "I can do some more research on the subject, either tonight when she's gone to sleep, or after you've come to pick her up. I don't think this will be the only time you can't find anyone else to watch over her while you tend to your professional affairs, yes?" Billy thanked Heph for his help and understanding, hoofed it back to his shuttle, and took off toward town. He wasn't sure how well hidden Samus would be with one of his longest-time associates, but he didn't have a lot of other options. At the least, if the Space Pirates came sniffing around, they would find themselves facing an unknown quality in their foe. Heph might look to anyone around like just another doddering older man trying to retain the vestiges of younger years by tinkering with his machinery, but the fact of the matter was, he was far more prepared and deadly with what he had on hand than most men half his age or younger.

And Samus wasn't a pushover either, it would turn out.


	4. Early Days Chapter 4- Beatdown

Flash watched the shuttle depart, his stealth field belt giving off an almost unobservable hum. He turned his head to look at Marlene, whose own belt was vibrating on the same wavelength, allowing them to see one another. The duo had a reputation for their dry and often dark humor, which accounted for Flash's label within the organization. His real name was Edgar Cuttler, an unassuming name for a man who, by all standards, could melt into just about any human crowd. He was wholly unremarkable, a fact he had used in good favor when arguing with Beaker about not getting the traditional anchor-and-blade tattoo of the organization. He never dressed extravagantly, but neither did he dumb himself down for any reason. The turaki unit leader remarked one day that Edgar had no flash, and seeing an opportunity to make a subtle joke, Marlene began calling him just that- Flash.

Marlene, however, could draw attention during a full-scale riot, her hair fashioned in two spike wheels along the sides of her head, the left spikes neon blue, the right spikes dark crimson. She had several shining piercings in her lips, her nose, and her eyebrows, and to top it all off, she donned highly polished metal armor whenever she was in the field. But while she was outwardly loud in appearance, she, like her partner, kept her head down and nose clean when necessary.

"Aran's brat's inside with the old man now," Flash said, looking back at Heph's compound through a farsight viewer.

"Remember Beaker's orders," she replied softly. "We don't hurt the girl."

"I still think it's a bad idea sending Zeke alone," Flash said, pulling the viewer down. "He's not made for delay tactics. He's going after Aran, he's going to go balls-to-the-wall. It's going to be a kill-or-be-killed fight, and I'm not sure Zeke can take him." He pulled out his pulse pistol, checked the energy cell, and holstered it again. Too much exposed energy so close to the belt would negate its chameleon effect. "Even if Zeke manages to kill Aran, what do we do with the girl at that point? We're not exactly a happy healthy family."

"Not our problem," said Marlene, checking her own weapon. "Beaker'll figure that out." The pair moved out from around the rock outcropping, walking slowly down the slope toward the compound. "Just remember, don't hurt the girl, but the guardian's expendable."

"Roger that," Flash said softly, preparing himself mentally for the task at hand.

Billy walked along the narrow downtown market streets, looking around only with his eyes, careful not to make it obvious that he knew he was marked. He couldn't help the armor, which would stick out anywhere he went planetside; however, as a bounty hunter, he could easily explain it. In any event, it would be better to have the armor and not need it, than to need it, and be exposed.

He expected an attack, yes. What he didn't expect, however, was the sheer recklessness of what transpired moments after he turned a corner by a crowded bistro. No sooner had he come around said corner than a burly man in black impact fibre armor came stalking out of a pharmacy kitter-corner to his position, a laser pistol in each hand, firing in steady succession at Billy. The first two shots went just wide, killing two defenseless people seated on the bistro's outdoor patio and kicking off mindless panic in the market. The third and fourth shots hit Billy in his leg and chest respectively, his armor holding up but the impact knocking him back through the wooden railing separating the patio from the street.

His own laser pistol came out as he flailed to maintain his balance, taking careful aim as four more shots came at him, each landing on his armor's leg plating, heating the plates to an unbearable level. He managed to squeeze off one good shot as he fell down, and saw the Space Pirate spin back and left as the shot clipped his shoulder. The outlaw's armor held up, though, causing no permanent damage.

Billy groaned as he tried to get up, his left hand slipping on something slick. He took a peek, saw that it was blood from one of the bystanders who'd been killed in the initial attack, and immediately felt his own anger surge to the surface. Someone had just been sitting there, enjoying a meal with his companion, who had also been slain by this outlaw, harming no one. The man and woman in question could have lived a quiet, unassuming life for many years yet, if not for the psychotic barbarian who'd decided a crowded public place would be the ideal place to host a fight with one of the galaxy's best bounty hunters.

In the seconds it took him to get from his ass to his feet, Billy's anger took a back seat. He had to admit to himself that whoever this thug was, he was cunning. The outlaw knew Billy couldn't risk a stray shot hitting a civilian, so he opened the engagement with projectile weaponry. He struck first, and he struck fast. And with the expectation that Billy would try to close the gap for a melee fight, he'd worn lighter, more maneuverable armor than Billy, giving him the edge at such range. In short, the outlaw had done his homework, and come prepared.

_Which is usually how I do things,_ Billy thought as he holstered his pistol and drew out his shock baton. He started toward the outlaw, civilians running, screaming north and south between the two men, obscuring his view, bumping into him. He saw the outlaw raise his pistols once again, heedless of the rushing crowds between them. Billy ducked as four more bolts flew from the laser pistols, three of the shots wounding passersby and one killing a man as he tried to zig-zag through the fight.

In the gap of civilians, Billy closed up, bringing his baton around in a vicious arc at the outlaw's head, easily blocked by the other man bringing his arms up and using the pistols' barrels as buffers. Against a standard baton, this would have been the right move, but with the voltage running through the baton by Billy holding down a red button with his thumb, it resulted in the outlaw twitching and flying back several yards, the pistols falling from momentarily numbed hands.

To the bigger man's credit, however, he was up with a deadly serrated combat knife in hand before Billy could get close enough for a follow-through strike. Billy flicked the baton at him once, twice, three times, gauging the bigger man's responses. With each flick, the outlaw hopped back, blade brought up next to a flat, open palm for a wider blocking surface. The handle of his blade was rubberized, but his bare hand would cause him trouble if any of the flicks had connected.

But Billy couldn't just keep the electrical charge going, as the power pack in the butt of his weapon wouldn't hold out. He adjusted his grip, the faint yellow glow snapping off as his thumb came off the shock button. The outlaw took a few lunging swipes and stabs at Billy, landing none of his strikes. Another quick swipe scraped faintly by the tip on Billy's belly plate, but the bounty hunter spotted a brief opening after the blow, whipping the end of his baton up under the big man's chin. He heard teeth clack together, followed by the pained grunt of his foe. The big man spat out some blood and a portion of a cracked tooth, grinned, and came at Billy again with a hard stab.

Billy managed to use a 'stir-the-pot' motion with his baton which, against an average fighter, would have given him a clear shot at the man's face. But Zeke was no average fighter, and he took the momentum to spin around and crouch, stabbing Billy in the back of the leg as the bounty hunter stumbled past him. Billy howled in pain, but the knife came with him, leaving his opponent temporarily unarmed. Billy turned back toward the other man, limping as he followed him back toward the broken patio railing he'd started against.

The outlaw grabbed a length of busted rail, bringing it up over his head just as Billy crashed down on him with an overhand swing. A boot thrust pushed Billy back, and a follow-up swing caught the bounty hunter in the shoulder, knocking him aside. If he wanted to win this fight, he would have to do it soon, and with one definitive strike. _Hope this works,_ he thought as he stumbled back, blocking another swing from the outlaw.

Billy shouted and fell backward, reaching down as if to clutch at the knife sticking out of the back of his leg. The big outlaw, sensing his opportunity, came forward howling, leaping through the air with his makeshift club in hand, ready to crush Billy's skull.

The bounty hunter aimed his holdout pistol, pulled from his ankle holster, and shot the big man square between the eyes. The outlaw fell limp atop him in a heap, and for a moment, Billy Aran just let himself be pinned by the corpse in the middle of the street, waiting for the local law or some nearby civilian to come help get the dead weight off of him.

"They seem to think they're still hidden," Samus said to the old engineer, her expression flat, fingers flying over the keyboard as she commanded his compound's defense system. Heph just grinned and nodded.

"They do at that," he said. "Let's give them a little thrill, what say you," he asked playfully. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Access security drone 5," he said. She did so with a few clicks and clacks, bringing up a heads-up-display from the viewpoint of the man-shaped drone currently standing next to one of the outbuildings. It had a line of sight on the main compound's front doors, but it didn't see the cloaked Space Pirates in its current vision mode. "Switch to infrared," said Heph. Samus did so, and immediately she saw what she had been looking at on the outer command screen, except from the drone's angle.

"Shall I set the drone on them," she asked.

"No, no, just have it march toward the front door," said Heph. Samus brought up a new set of controls, and began piloting the drone from her console, marching it toward the front porch. She watched as the pair on the porch turned toward the drone, slowly backing away from the front door, trying not to bump into one another. She turned the drone toward the steps up to the porch, but Heph put his hand softly over hers. "Now," he said with a mishievous smile, "have it make this announcement," he said, typing in the words for the drone to speak in its automated voice.

"Oh," Samus said, finally cracking a smile of her own. "This is going to be amusing."

Flash watched as the drone squared itself to the front door. It raised its arms over its head and announced in a clunky, mechanical voice, "Now collecting cattle manure specimens for examination." It then turned and hustled away to one side of the compound, leaving the pair of Space Pirates motionless on the porch.

"We should move now," Marlene said. Flash put a hand on her shoulder to stay her, though.

"No, we don't know how quickly that thing will come back," he whispered. "And lower your voice. They might have audio surveillance this close." She nodded, keeping still afterward. Moments later, the drone came hoofing back, a pile of dung in its hands. It walked right to the edge of the steps.

"Depositing sample for analysis," it proclaimed, flinging its arms up, hand units spinning. A spray of what they could only hope was simply cow shit flew out, splattering the front door and the outlaws standing nearby. A different voice then came from the robot's head unit.

"Maintenance drone 3 report to main front porch, worker drone 5 appears to be malfunctioning," said an older man's voice loudly. "Repeat, maintenance drone 3 to main front porch. Fill up your water tank if it isn't already full." Speckled with fecal matter, the outlaws remained still, both hoping that the machines and, more importantly, the old man inside wouldn't notice fine particles of shit suspended in midair just a few feet from the front door on the porch. Shortly, a tread-mounted robot with a clear hose tube attached to its left armature came rolling around the side of the main compound, rolling right up to the other drone. "Maintenance drone, please clean off the affected drone and the porch, if you would."

The maintenance robot did as bid immediately, spraying down the other robot first, then sweeping the porch. The moment the water struck the outlaws, their stealth field generators shorted, giving them brief electrical shocks, dropping them to the floorboards. As they tried getting up, both groaning, three laser cannon barrels lowered into their collective fields of vision, each held by a shining steel sentry.

One of the robot guards lowered its face toward them, and the old man's voice chimed in once more. "I would recommend disarming yourselves," he said

Flash and Marlene stood clutching the bars of their lockdown cell in the security hut, a small outbuilding kept fifty yards from the main compound. They had locked gazes with the old man and little girl, and while Marlene still held her own against the old man, Flash couldn't keep his eyes locked with the Svestri girl's; there was just something there he couldn't match.

"There are a few ways we can go about handling this situation," Heph said, arms folded over his chest. "The first way is simple, but far too brutal for my liking- we kill you, and deal with karmic retribution later." Marlene finally looked away, still holding onto the bars. "The second way, wherein we contact the local law enforcement authorities to come collect you. Being Space Pirates, you will likely be taken to the command center by the spaceport, and then suffer summary execution. And finally, there's a third option, which is to wait here until William Aran returns, transfer you to his custody, and then let him take you to the local bounty office. Which sounds best to you two?"

Neither outlaw answered, both ducking away to the back of their cell to confer in hushed voices. Samus didn't move, but when the two outlaws were still whispering, she walked over calmly to a control panel against one wall and pressed several buttons. As soon as she finished her input, a blast shutter came down behind the bars, and the sound of hissing filled the room. Heph looked over at Samus and gaped at her.

"What did you do," he barked.

"I closed them in and activated the knock-out gas," Samus replied evenly. "They both still had a concealed sonic disruptor tucked at the small of their backs. I heard them talking about activating them." Heph blinked at her, then looked at the cell as the shutter and bars raised out of the way, revealing two very unconscious Space Pirates. Samus ducked into the cell, rolled the pair over, and returned to Heph with two small blue devices. She then lowered the bars again and tapped another command input, which sent a brief jolt of electricity through the floor of the cell, awakening the outlaws with a harmonious yelp. Both felt at the small of their backs, and narrowed their eyes as Heph dropped their disruptors on the floor for them to see.

"She's very observant," he said, pointing at Samus with one crossed hand.

"She's a freak, more like," the female outlaw spat. Samus took two steps toward the cell, careful to stay out of their reach if they should approach the bars.

"Will you attempt to resist arrest if law enforcement is summoned," she asked. The outlaws snickered, slowly getting up to their feet.

"Space Pirates don't get arrested," said the man. "So yeah, we will."

"Will you attempt escape if you are turned over to William Aran," she asked, using the same flat, even tone as her previous inquiry.

"Only after we've killed him," said the woman snidely, flipping off the old man and young girl. Samus turned her head to look Heph in the eyes, and all too late, the old engineer saw there what Flash had seen only a couple of minutes before.

"That leaves only one option," she said. Samus then drew the laser pistol her father had given her, and with two rapid shots, put a laser bolt through the chest of both Space Pirates.

Billy landed the shuttle outside of his house and raced inside, scanning the area with his eyes for signs of a trap. Seeing nothing, he swept the entire house both visually and with his wrist-mounted computer, just to be sure. When he finally felt ready to take a breath he did so, then ambled into the living room and brought up his main console. There was a flashing green light telling him he had an audio message, which he played. "William, it's Heph," said the old man, sounding weary and, truth be told, a little frightened. "You need to call me, as soon as you can. I pray to all the gods that you get this and you're all right." Fearing that the old engineer and his daughter were in a panic room under siege, Billy put through a video call immediately. It connected, showing Heph in his private office at his desk, looking haunted.

"Heph, what's happened? Where's Samus," Billy barked. Heph moistened his lips, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and slumped forward.

"She's in the living room, watching some cartoons," he replied. "William, we were set upon by two Space Pirates, a man and a woman. They are dead now."

"So your drones worked? That's a good thing," Billy said.

"No, William, the drones didn't kill them. The drones captured them. William, your daughter killed them," Heph said, his voice cracking, tears rolling down his cheeks. He told Billy the entire story, pausing only once to gather his composure. When he was finished, he shook his head, hands folded together in front of him on his desk. "She isn't human, William. I knew that already, but I had no idea what that might imply in situations like this. She didn't hesitate."

"As well she shouldn't, not with people like this," Billy snapped, surprising even himself with his vehemence. "Heph, look, these are Space Pirates. And frankly, considering that they had just threatened to kill me if given the chance, I'd say she responded perfectly. She relies on me, and if something were to happen to me, she has no idea what would happen to her. Rather than risk that unknown, she took the only option you offered them that they hadn't already shot down." Heph nodded, but the deep sadness didn't leave his face for a moment.

"I suppose, viewed through that filter, you are absolutely correct," the old engineer said. "But knowing that such is how she views the world, I have to ask you to come and have a long talk at her. I cannot have that happen again in my home, William. If you want me to be able to host her here as my ward for any period of time, she must know that she cannot just execute prisoners if they are in custody, no matter how heinous their words or deeds." Billy grunted, but he wasn't about to argue with the old goat.

"I'll have a discussion with her when I swing by," he said. "But Heph? If you took down two, and I only got one, then you know there's anywhere from three to five more of them left planetside with us." The old engineer just nodded, then cut the comms link, Billy's screen going blank. He had hoped it wouldn't come to killing so quickly for the girl, but he was at least relieved that she had taken what little training and warnings he'd given her to heart, using them to their utmost efficiency.

Billy Aran grabbed a few extra supplies and hopped back in his planetside shuttle, heading for Heph's compound.


	5. Chapter 5- Secrets

"Un-be-fucking-lievable," Beaker muttered, shaking his head as his remaining unit members filled him in on what had happened to Zeke, Flash and Marlene. Details were hazy surrounding the dry-witted duo who'd gone after the old engineer and Aran's kid, but Hephaestus had a reputation not only for making the finest armors and precision weapons, but top-of-the-line security robots too. Beaker estimated that his people had likely run afoul of some tough mechanized resistance, and instead of running for the hills, got themselves offed. It shouldn't mean much to him, but it was embarrassing to lose people out in the backwater systems.

Certainly, Ridley wouldn't be happy about such a development. Thinking of the space dragon, even for just a moment, sent a shiver down the turaki's spine. He _hated_ being around Ridley, suspecting each time he came near the enormous creature that it had somehow gotten even bigger since last he'd seen it. That wasn't necessarily true or false, however, as he'd learned over the course of his years with the Space Pirates; Ridley's unique physiological composition allowed for random expansions, contractions, and altogether bizarre singularities which, more often than not, served only a limited function before falling off entirely. It simply didn't do any good to focus too long on the organization's figurehead member.

_And in any case, he isn't down here_, Beaker thought, pacing back and forth from one end of the hidden lair to the other. _By now, he might not even be in this system. I could be so lucky._ Finally he ceased pacing, gathering the remaining members of the unit in the equipment room, standing at the back next to a holoboard.

"All right, folks, we know what we're up against here," said the turaki, his feline tail swishing behind him without his willing it to. He tapped a few buttons on his own wrist-mounted computer, bringing up a bio of William Aran. "Billy Aran, registered bounty hunter with at least half a dozen galactic governing bodies and several less sizable sovereign states acknowledging his authority to collect for contracts they have recognized as legitimate." Beaker pointed at the profile picture of Aran in his MkII armor, shaking his head. "He's still using a Parker Mark II blast armor suit for combat and space exploration, one of the heaviest commercial models to hit the market in the last century. We've seen him fight plenty of our comrades and some of our competitors in the old outlaw game out here in the 'verse, though, and I can tell you this- that armor might be old and heavy, but it has saved his ass several times when he should have been by all rights dead as a door nail."

Beaker tapped a few buttons on his wrist, and another set of images came up on the holoboard, these of Samus. They were security images taken from the spaceport mostly, but a few video clips played from the security cameras in her school as well. One kept playing a brief altercation she'd had with a much larger girl on a repeating loop. One of Beaker's men squinted, leaning forward, and pointed at the corner of the screen. "What's going on there, sir? Yeah, in that one," the outlaw asked.

"Ah, yes, that," said Beaker, dragging the clip up to the center of the board and expanding it with a twitch of his hands. He returned the loop to the beginning, and ran a frame-by-frame. "You see, here, we have one Samus Aran, this green-haired girl. She is a Svestri, and daughter to our boy Billy. Nine years of age, and according to her school's records," Beaker said, pulling up a second image and dragging it off to one side, so as not to obscure the main video playback. "She's nine years of age, but has the approximate physical characteristics of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl in terms of height and muscle tone. Now, the bigger girl," the turaki continued, stroking his whiskers out of habit as he consulted his wrist-mounted computer, "is Kendra Kursevich, fifteen years of age, a little heavier set for her age, but an absolute giant compared to little Samus. Here," he said, playing the video a few frames. In those few frames, Kendra's hands could be seen thrusting up and forward in an attempt to shove Samus. "We see, Kursevich begin to lunge for a powerful shove, one that should easily knock the smaller girl down or into the opposite wall in this hallway. Yet, here's what actually happens," he said, letting the rest of the footage play out in slow-motion.

The other members of the unit watched carefully, but Beaker had to rewind and replay the footage five times before they all saw exactly what transpired. As Kursevich was thrusting her hands up towards Samus, the Svestri girl was leaning back from the waist up, her hips following only a split second behind. Her left foot shot forward, turned to the left slightly, allowing the inside of her shoe to kick into and scrape down the front of Kursevich's shin. As this was occurring, Samus's hands shot up close together, as if in prayer or benediction, then darted out quickly to each side, causing Kursevich's elbows to bow out as the nerves on the inner biceps were struck. From there, all Samus did was thrust one knuckle, a bump-raised middle finger, into the bigger girl's throat, and take one long, dragging step to the left, allowing Kursevich to fall flat to the floor.

Played in real-time, it just looked like the bigger girl tripped over her own feet, and knew it was going to happen, resulting in her reaching for Samus. But the members of the Space Pirates were all old hands at hand-to-hand combat, even if they weren't all experts in the ways of close-up fighting, so they knew what to look for.

And all of them came to the same conclusion; the girl was naturally dangerous.

"Flash and Marlene are probably dead," Beaker said, taking the video playback off of the holoscreen. "And, given what we've seen here, if they are, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that it was the Aran kid who killed them. Hephaestus has his old robots and gadgets, but in a close-up encounter, he wouldn't be much good to himself or anyone else. As for Billy, he killed Zeke plain as day with dozens of witnesses on hand to report the entire blow-by-blow."

Beaker brought the lights up and stood before his remaining unit members with his hands folded behind his back. "We have three basic options here, folks. Option one, we go into lockdown. We grab some extra supplies and hole up down here for a few months, until the heat completely dies down. Maybe charter a shuttle off-planet to make Aran think we've tucked tail and run." He paced back and forth once more as he spoke. "Option two, we gather up all of our resources and go on a full-out offensive, wipe out Aran and everything around him in a mile-wide radius. And lastly, option three," he said, coming to a halt and sighing. "We run. We cut our losses in this system and get the hell out, regroup at one of our bigger bases."

The unit captain brought up a holoscreen display once again, which showed the three options he'd just laid out to the remaining members of the group. All totaled, grunts included, there were thirteen Space Pirates still on the planet, all gathered now before him. He looked out over them, and then proceeded to walk among them, handing each man and woman a small device pre-loaded with the question on the holoscreen- which route of action would they take?

"When I say 'go'," Beaker announced as he returned to his place at the front of the room, "you will have sixty seconds to select which of these options we'll lean towards. I may be captain of this unit, and I may be in charge, but you all know me," said Beaker, his feline whiskers twitching. "You know I don't care for making every big decision for us without hearing you out first. Now, go."

As votes came in on the devices, they showed up on the large holoscreen behind Beaker, who himself voted for locking things down right there. Yet, within half a minute, all of the votes were in, and Beaker felt a twinge of disappointment. One member had voted to go for all-out assault, one for lockdown (Beaker himself), and every other vote was pegged for running to regroup. The turaki criminal thought that keeping quiet for a while and orchestrating a far more refined ambush would be the surest way of dealing with Aran, but he also wondered if the bounty hunter might not call in reinforcements of his own. Alone, Billy couldn't take them all on and win, but the casualties that the unit would incur would be viewed as unacceptable by the higher-ups in the organization.

They were going to run.

Three days had passed since the attacks, and after a much-needed conversation with Samus about what she could and could not do when around certain members of the civilized populace, Billy had seen no choice but to send her back to school and try to re-establish their daily routines. At the moment, though, Billy was watching as her school shuttle fluttered away, its engines whirring softly as it carried its load of students. As soon as it was out of sight, Billy ducked inside and collected a baggie from his bedroom's side table by his bed, along with a flash drive containing her medical information.

Billy had reviewed the info, as had the local docs he'd spoken with. The medics at the school had looked the drive over too, and none of them had been able to make heads or tails of some of the data. He'd resolved to know everything he could about his child, so he was taking the drive and the baggie, which had several of Samus's long, thin green hairs, and a single blood slide sample, to a genetic specialist whose research revolved around anomalies in human coding.

Billy got in his planetside shuttle and set the autopilot, keying in the address of the lab that his man worked out of. With his course set, Billy opened up his wrist computer and started checking outbound spaceport traffic reports. In the last two days, seven Quest-Type shuttles had departed the surface, all using patch codes coming from the same series. He knew they belonged to the other Space Pirates who'd been on the planet, outlaws now probably racing to get as far from the system as possible. He could alert the local law, sure, but Space Pirates were dangerous, even in Quest-Type vessels; they would easily kill the patrolmen sent after them.

Billy opted instead to send an encrypted message to a handful of other bounty hunters he knew were in nearby systems, relaying the identity tags he managed to record from the outlaws' shuttles and asking for a finders' fee if any of them should nab and turn in one of the Space Pirates. Billy wasn't greedy or unreasonable, but he wanted to be fairly compensated, considering the trouble the organization had caused him.

The message sent, he sat back with his arms folded over his chest, thinking about Samus. She'd lost her mother, been taken in by a father she hadn't known, brought to a planet she didn't know, and come under ambush by some of the most dangerous criminals in the 'verse. It couldn't have been easy on her, Svestri or no, and Billy began wondering if what she'd done to the two outlaws in Heph's security cell had was perhaps her way of releasing all of the stress she'd come under. He couldn't say yes for certain, but he could hope that it wasn't a sign of a pattern of behavior.

If it were, he would have to find her a better outlet soon.

When his shuttle came to a halt, powerful magnet clamps came up from underneath it and locked it into the docking bay aboard the cruiser. Beaker sighed and rose up from the pilot's seat, moving back to the latch and entering the security code to open it. As the hydraulics engaged and swung the door up and open, four heavily-built men in combat armor with plasma rifles raised weapons on the turaki Space Pirate. He raised his hands and placed them on the back of his head calmly, as was procedure, while one of the guards lowered his weapon and held up a small silver box, waving a beam of faint blue light over his body from head to toe.

"He's clean," the guard grunted. The other three lowered their weapons, and the grim expressions on their faces fell into easy smiles. "Good to see you again, captain," said the scanner-guard, offering Beaker a gloved hand. The turaki wiggled his whiskers and took the hand, pumping twice.

"Sergeant, you as well," he said, stepping out of the shuttle onto the steel floor. "Who's in charge of this cruiser?"

"Major Kaufman, sir," said the sergeant, leading him toward a tall archway out of the loading bay. The smell of hot metal and spent fuel cells hung heavy in the air, a familiar and comforting aroma for the turaki. His first role with the organization had been as a mechanic's assistant in a repair and docking bay similar to this, aboard the Wayward Fist, one of the Space Pirates' premier cruisers. The Fist had been destroyed four years earlier, however, in a heated exchange with the Bolarix Empirial fleet. That had been only a year after Beaker's promotion to master mechanic and transfer to Glimmerstar, the cruiser he was currently walking through. "I should warn you, though, sir; Ridley is on-board as well."

Beaker said nothing, but his shoulders hunched up. The space dragon had no official rank within the organization, but his word was taken as law by most. The most dangerous weapon at the Space Pirates' disposal, the creature was unpredictable in the best of times. As the sergeant led him around a corner in the long, tunnel-like corridors of the cruiser, he said, "I'll want to know what Ridley's been up to recently."

"Of course, sir," said the sergeant. "A week ago, he raided a platinum mine on K-6L, killed thirty-three miners and assorted workers. He wound up snatching five full standard shipping crates of smelted platinum and bringing them to us. We've been busy shaping the material into armor plating for the fighters." The sergeant brought his left arm up and tapped about on the keyboard of his own wrist computer, bringing up more reports. "Three weeks ago, Ridley left the ship to an undisclosed location, came back four days later badly damaged. He wouldn't tell us where he'd been, what happened, but he brought back a, er, specimen," the sergeant said, lowering his arm.

"What kind of specimen," Beaker asked, intrigued.

"You'll see in a few minutes, sir. I'm taking you to our exploratory lab right now." Curiosity piqued, Beaker followed the sergeant without another word until they arrived at a large blast chamber door with a scanner set in the wall next to it. The sergeant lowered his face to the flat black panel, which flashed a yellow light over his eye. A light 'ding' sounded, followed by an automated female voice.

"Second person detected in range. Please approach and scan," it said. Beaker repeated the sergeant's steps, and another ding sounded. "Welcome, sergeant Bunt, captain Beaker. Please enter quickly." The blast door cracked open a few feet, and the human and turaki swept inside. The chamber just beyond the blast door was a plain white chamber, devoid of any decoration on any surface. Two white hazmat suits hung on hooks next to another door, this one a simple sliding steel security door with a number pad next to it. The sergeant began removing his combat armor as Beaker donned one of the suits and waited for him by the number pad. He entered his own security code, then stepped back as the panel door slid open.

The room beyond was enormous, filled with all manner of bizarre scientific equipment and tanks filled with various life forms floating in suspended animation. One such tank held a fellow Space Pirate, his tank filled with an exotic blend of fluids and nutrients intended to help heal grievous wounds in his chest and shoulder, an oxygen mask mounted over his face to keep him breathing. The sergeant led Beaker past several of these stations, the turaki greeting some of the engineers who recognized him and nodded along the way.

When they finally came to a stop, Beaker found he couldn't pull his eyes off of the strange creature in the tank before him. He marveled at the being, feeling both awed and, for some reason, disquieted. After almost two full minutes of silently staring at the specimen, he whispered, "What is it?"

"We don't know what it's called, sir," said one of the engineers seated before him at a readout station connected to the tank. "But we do know that it possesses a kind of venom that nearly killed Ridley. The creature was attached to the space dragon's torso when he returned to us, and he had half a dozen wounds that matched the injury we exposed when we removed the specimen from him. Whatever this thing is, they attack in packs, we think."

"And he still hasn't said where he found it," Beaker asked.

"No, sir, but we've got tracers out. We'll find it. In the meantime, we're trying to establish a way of communicating with the creature," said the engineer. Beaker nodded, then excused himself and the sergeant. As they left the lab, he thought, _we shouldn't be trying to talk to that thing, we should be dissecting it._

Billy grumbled as he lost yet another round of holo-chess to Sandy, who giggled at him over the comms connection. "You really haven't gotten any better at this," she prodded gently. "How is it you've managed to be so good at your job when you can't anticipate five moves ahead?"

"In real life you only get to anticipate two or three ahead," the bounty hunter replied with a good-natured smirk, wiping the holoboard aside. He was seated in a kind of dining room/lounge area, waiting for his contact to finish his analysis of the samples Billy had brought him. "There is no taking turns when someone's firing a blaster at your head."

"True enough," the red-head said. She sighed, looked aside. "Listen, Billy, I wanted to know how Samus is holding up. I was thinking about swinging by and seeing you guys in a couple of days, when I've got more time off."

"She's doing okay," he said. "I'm just a little worried about her at school. I don't think she's made any friends yet."

"She's the new kid, Billy. Give her some time." Billy shrugged, then looked up as a door opened off to his right. A turaki in khakis, a white button shirt and long lab coat came into the lounge with a clipboard loaded with printout sheets, his expression flat, eyes half-lidded.

"Hey listen, Sandy, I gotta let you go," Billy said.

"Okay. Call me later," Sandy replied. Billy closed the comms on his wrist comp, then stood up. He shook the turaki's hand and returned to his seat on the couch, while the doctor took up a spot on an ottoman kitty-corner to him.

"So, what did you find out, Dr. Wretz," Billy asked. The doctor looked down at the top sheet of his printout and shook his head, then looked at Billy again.

"Well, first off, I have to warn you, my analysis isn't one-hundred percent complete," the turaki replied. His short feline fur was a brilliant orange marked with occasional black circles, which kept drawing Billy's eyes to his forehead, where they appeared to waver with each small shift in facial expression. "There are markers in her genetic code that we just don't have any matches for."

"What does that mean," Billy asked, curious.

"It means that Dr. Svestri had access to a life form that hasn't been officially registered with any of the databases I have access to. I take a great deal of pride in my own personal ethics, Mr. Aran, but there are some geneticists who would do just about anything to study your daughter. Just fair warning."

"Noted," Billy said, eyes narrowing on the turaki. The doctor flipped to another page in his report. "Continue."

"Well, there's definitely an explanation for your daughter's strength and speed, as well as her heightened intelligence and rate of information absorption. Part of the genetic code she's been fused with is chozo."

"Wait, those bird-people from the outers," Billy asked. The doctor nodded. "But I thought they were mostly isolationist."

"True, but they are great scientific minds, all of them," said Wretz. "It's possible that Svestri made contact with their colony on Tallon IV and shared his theories with them. Being the philosophical sort that they are, one of them likely volunteered to donate some of his or her own genetic code for Svestri's experiments. But I must say," Wretz said, leafing through several more pages, "the overall effect this fusion is causing in Samus is fascinating. She has elevated levels of both testosterone and estrogen for a child her age, and there's a trace of zithoim in her bloodstream, which is a kind of adrenaline usually found in the species that descended from the first chozo tribes and evolved off into their own separate species."

"Is that dangerous at all," Billy asked.

"In the amounts I found in her sample, no," said Wretz. "But in higher amounts, it can cause disruptions in mirror neurons in the brain, causing a complete but temporary shutdown of any sense of empathy on her part." Billy stiffened, cleared his throat.

"If Samus were to become afraid, would that trigger an overproduction?"

"No," said Wretz quickly. "But when chozo become angry, which is rare, their bodies naturally produce a higher concentration of the zithoim. Centuries ago, when they still had warriors among their ranks, it was a common battlefield tactic to try getting one another into state of rage, so that they could turn that remorselessness against their foes. Why?"

"No reason," Billy lied. The turaki just stared at him for a moment, then seemed to let the matter drop.

"Anyhow, this unknown genetic coding infused in there, while it's a small amount, worries me. I have no idea what effect it'll have on your daughter in the short or long run. My recommendation is that you try to get in touch with someone who worked with Dr. Svestri during the original trials, if any of those folks are still around. They may have more answers for you. Otherwise," he said, handing the clipboard to Billy, "this is your copy to keep." Billy took the clipboard and thanked Wretz for his time, then got up and sighed. The turaki geneticist started away back toward the door he'd come through, and as he did, Billy withdrew a small silver tube from one of his pockets, taking aim and pushing a button on the tube. A minuscule black dot launched from the tube and landed right near the hem of Wretz's lab coat, utterly unnoticed by the turaki. Billy hustled out of the building then, back to his shuttle, where he set the nav system on autopilot back to his home.

Using his wrist comp, Billy brought up a live feed of the audio bug he'd planted on Wretz and started a recorder in the background. As his vessel started away slowly, he listened in.

"-parameters for thirty-three percent, and run it again," he heard another voice saying, a smooth, calm female tone. A rustle of sheets, tapping of keys in the background, and the click-clack of wingtip shoes on a tile floor filled Billy's ears. "Ah, Doctor Wretz. We've been waiting for your return. Is your business with Mr. Aran complete?"

"For now," said the turaki. "You need to contact Allen, tell him to lay low, maybe leave the system for a short while."

"Why," asked the woman.

"Because I told Aran to look for some of Svestri's old assistants to find out more about the unrecognized data. Tell Allen to take the hard drive with him, wherever he winds up going."

"Understood, sir. Gina? Get Doctor Gemmsworth on the comms for me." Billy cut the signal then, having heard everything he needed to from the bug. A quick search on his wrist comp brought up the office address for one Dr. Allen Gemmsworth, listed on the planet's registry for genetic reconstruction therapists. He reset his autopilot for the good doctor's office, and sat back once more, determined to get some answers.

"A brave choice, Aran," said Simon, barely audible among the snickers and giggles of his peers. A ring of twenty or so children roughly her own age stood around Samus and Simon as they sat in the middle of the classroom, the instructor presently focused on tending to his own problematic bathroom problems down the hall. Simon had slipped the laxatives into his coffee early that morning, and now they were doing their part to give the class some free time to cause a ruckus.

Between Samus and Simon sat three opaque red plastic cups. Simon lifted one up, revealing a strange insect curled into a tight ball. Simon was easily the class's chief troublemaker, the son of an important government official whose sense of privilege and entitlement had turned him into a tiny tyrant in the classroom. He sneered at Samus in her plain orange long-sleeved shirt and matching trousers, her long green hair tied back in a loose ponytail. "You know the rules, Aran. You pick it, you eat it."

Her father had been adamant about not getting into anymore physical altercations if they were avoidable, but the temptation here was strong. She was different, so these maniacal little cretins had opted to ostracize her and use her as their emotional punching bag. Optimally, she could cut short their taunts with a swift jabbing punch to Simon's throat. But the ensuing panic would undoubtedly lead to an adult being pulled in, and she would once again find herself in the principal's office awaiting her father's arrival for another meeting.

So, instead of following her instincts, she took a page from her father's book. "I know the rules," she said evenly. "And I'll go you one further. I'll eat two of these things, but you have to eat the third," she said. There came a rush of 'oooh's and 'aaahh's from the ring of classmates around them, and Samus could spot the glint of fear in Simon's eyes. Within moments they were all chanting, 'Dooo it, dooo it, dooo it!' The ball was now in the boy's court.

"All right, fine," Simon said, sitting up, arms folded over his chest. "But you go first."

"Handily," she replied, snatching up the bug and shoving it in her mouth. She swallowed the wriggling little horror, then tipped over another cup and grabbed the bug there, chasing it down right after without chewing or taking the time to identify it. The ring of children all made disgusted noises, some looking away and cringing, and others still laughing at this sport. "Your turn, Simon. Unless you're a coward," she added with a grin.

"Shut up," he snapped, turning his head aside and snorting. "I ain't no coward. I'm just not a dummy who's stupid enough to eat bugs." Samus waited, and after a few seconds, her patience was rewarded. Another boy stepped from the circle and pointed down at Simon.

"You already said you'd do it if she ate two bugs," said the newcomer, a boy named Richie. Richie was a chubby, pale skinned boy, himself also often the target of Simon's cruelties. Since Samus's arrival, Richie had been granted a sort of reprieve from the constant taunting he was the victim of. Seeing someone else being treated the same way, however, seemed to have given him a bit of backbone, for which Samus was grateful. "You gonna be a liar?"

"No," Simon huffed, but a new chant was starting among the children, one of 'Cow-ward! Cow-ward! Cow-ward!' Simon shot them all an evil look and shouted, "Shut up! I'm doin' it, okay?" He tipped over the last cup, snatched the crawling thing underneath, and shoved it in his mouth, quickly chewing and swallowing. He was standing up for a moment of triumph when his body, refusing to accept what he'd just given it, rebelled against him, and he threw up all over the space between himself and the Svestri girl.

Everyone moaned and backed away quickly, except for Richie, who actually helped Simon back away from his own mess before easing him down to the floor in a seated position. "I'll go get the nurse," the chubby boy said, hustling out of the room. Simon looked over at Samus, who stood with her hands on her hips, smiling at him. As their eyes met, she winked, then walked casually over to her desk, where she took up her current book.

_Sometimes, it's more fun not to fight,_ she thought.

` Allen set the hard drive in its protective case, put that in his trunk, and then grabbed some of his clothes for the trip. He also grabbed a plasma pistol, shuddering at the very sight and feel of it. He hated violence of any sort, but he believed in being prepared for any circumstance, including having to defend himself. He heard swift movement downstairs, paused, and called out, "Judith, don't forget to set my boots out! I need to get going quickly!" He didn't wait for any response, finishing packing up his case and confirming his shuttle ticket purchase to K-L9. He wondered for a moment why K-L2 hadn't kept it's official designation, but shrugged off the stray thought. _All that matters is that I get _off _K-L2 before that bounty hunter finds me._

He carried the suitcase out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs and froze, dropping the bag with a heavy thud as he looked down the steps. Judith, his personal home assistant droid, lay in a heap on the floor below. At the base of the steps, smiling wickedly up at him with an ion stun stick in hand, was a burly man in an outdated space combat suit.

"Doctor Gemmsworth," the man asked amiably. "I'm Billy Aran. I have a few questions for you."


	6. Chapter 6- Information

Billy sipped his coffee, looking at Samus out of the corner of his eye. She had become a tiny bit more energetic over the last few weeks, and had even had a friend over a few days earlier, a chubby boy named Richie. Billy took a liking to the kid right off, an awkward but friendly and intelligent boy a year younger than Samus. She spent a good few hours teaching him how to play chess, then watched as he showed her one of his video games, a bizarre little title called 'Genesis Eve'. Samus had been spellbound by the game, some sort of old-fashioned swords-and-sorcery game Billy couldn't begin to comprehend.

It was a quiet Saturday morning in the Aran household, and Sandy would be on her way over shortly. She'd been by to visit several times in the last couple of weeks, playing some pass with a soccer ball with the young Aran girl in the afternoon, then enjoying much more, ah, _adult_ games with Billy at night. For his part, Billy was enjoying their time together, but he was going to have to ask a huge favor of her when she came over this morning. Given that they hadn't yet had 'the talk' regarding their relationship, one wherein they would define the parameters of what exactly they had together, he wasn't sure how she would react.

Firstly, though, he had to tell Samus. "Sweetheart?"

"Yes, father," she replied, looking up from her cereal.

"You've enjoyed the drills we've been running, right?"

"Very much so, father. You've taught me a great deal," Samus said, her mouth quirking into a ghost of a smile.

"Well, they may have to stop for a few days," Billy said with a sigh. "There's a job on the boards, and I'm thinking about taking it. I've got plenty of money, don't get me wrong, but I have to bring some more in to keep things on an even keel." Samus's would-be smile faded, but she nodded.

"I understand, sir. You don't have a normal job, so I get to spend a lot of time with you, more than most of my classmates get with their parents. I am fortunate this way." She looked down, wriggling in her seat, then peered up at him through a sheaf of her long, fair green hair. "Do you think, when I'm a little older, I could go with you on one of your hunts?" Billy was taken aback, not so much by the question itself, but by the demure, almost ladylike way she was asking. There was a shyness in it that he'd never seen in her in their short time together, a vulnerability he couldn't quite resist.

"Yes, dear," he said, patting her shoulder. "When you're a little older." She nodded, then returned to eating. Billy was about to take another sip of coffee when Samus asked the natural question.

"Um, if you're going to be gone, am I going back to Heph's?"

"Not necessarily, kiddo," he said, setting his cup down. "Sandy's coming over in a little bit, and I'm going to ask if she can stay here and watch you and the house while I'm gone. Would that be okay with you?"

"Yes, of course, sir," she replied happily. She finished her breakfast, washed out her bowl and spoon, and flitted off to the living room for Saturday morning cartoons on the live networks. Billy stared down into his coffee, sipped it, and brought up his link on the wrist comp, confirming his acceptance of the bounty job he'd taken interest in. He needed the money, yes, but he had ulterior motives. The bounty head himself was just a middle-road criminal known to be hanging out around Tallon IV three systems away. Much more important to Billy was the proximity of Tallon, where he would stop after nabbing his prey in the hopes of speaking with one of the elusive chozo people.

Gemmsworth had turned out to be something of a dead end, though he had managed to glean one thing from the geneticist; the chozo who had volunteered to help Svestri with his research and experiments in human genetic augmentation had also provided the sample of the unknown species. The bird-man's name had been one of the few bits of data he'd managed to unscramble on the corrupted hard drive- Phelaxia Narhomis, of Tallon IV.

Billy listened to the sounds of cartoon humor in the living room, and waited for Sandy to arrive.

Beaker tried to ignore the enormous presence behind him, but that wasn't easy. Even having used his bizarre ability to reduce his physical mass, Ridley's aura flooded the lab. Most of the life forms in their suspended animation had begun exhibiting signs of agitation and night terrors the moment the space dragon entered, his angular, dragon-like body unable to fit into one of the hazmat suits reserved for the more humanoid members of the crew. His body let off an energy that just unsettled everything with a sentience around him.

Except, somehow, Specimen 34. The jellyfish-like entity had writhed a little bit when Ridley approached its tank, but then returned quickly to its normal state of inactivity. Beaker didn't understand how it could be so relatively unaffected by the space dragon's presence, but he didn't need to. All he needed to concentrate on at the moment was staying out of the beast's claw range.

"It isn't afraid," Ridley boomed, his wet, raspy voice carrying a trace of malice. "I slew its kin right in front of it, survived its feeding off of me through millions of miles in space, and still it does not fear me." He leaned his huge, avian-like head forward, pressing his forehead against the outer surface of the tank. "How is it not afraid of me?"

"There was some brief activity when you first entered the lab, sir," said one of the engineers at the workstation, seated to Ridley's left as the beast stood right between the two technicians. "But it's gone dormant again since. We managed to extract a sample of the venom it used on you when it was feeding in its pure form. Frankly, it's a miracle you didn't die again, Ridley." Beaker took two huge steps back, just in time to avoid blood spray when Ridley's left arm flicked up, his claws splitting the man's head in half.

"Have that mess cleaned up," the space dragon spat as he turned around and stomped out of the lab, his serpentine tail flapping out behind him and knocking several other technicians sprawling. Beaker dragged the dead man away, thankful that his body had only slumped a little on his wheeled desk chair. The turaki got another outlaw to help him wheel the dead man out of the lab and down to the waste tubes, where the body was unceremoniously loaded into a chute before being lobbed out into the void of space.

"He's gotten worse," said the other outlaw, a corporal, as they exited the waste tube chamber into the cruiser's main passageway. "Ever since we left that last system, he's been impossible to deal with. We've lost eight men in three weeks because of his temper."

"There's little to be done for it, corporal," Beaker replied. He licked the back of his paw and slicked down the hair atop his sloped head, shrugged his shoulders. "Ask the major if he'll take a meeting with me and confirm our next nearest safe port. I have to try and get in touch with command," the turaki said, leaving the corporal to his task. Beaker had readjusted swiftly to being onboard the cruiser within only a few days, and remembered quickly why he preferred being in-flight as opposed to being grounded; the sense of movement made him feel constantly renewed, like anything was possible. Without the constricting rules of the Galactic Federation from which he'd first come holding him back, the turaki Space Pirate felt fully empowered, even though his rank was only that of captain.

Dressed in a simple lightweight gray Durasuit MkIII, the cat-like humanoid made his way swiftly through the central passageways of the vessel to the space dragon's chamber. The tall blast doors loomed overhead, necessary for Ridley to get in and out in his expanded form. A smell like freshly baked bread, semi-sweet and warm, filled the corridor, coming from the kitchens just down the way. The placement of the behemoth beast's lair in such proximity to the vessel's food source was not accidental; nobody wanted to see the carts and cages transported from the kitchen to the space dragon's chamber.

Beaker touched the keypad next to the giant doors, waiting as an electronic trilling came through a speaker grille set next to the keypad. It chimed four times before it stopped, hydraulic lines whirring to life as the doors slid apart. Beaker looked into the chamber on the threshold, taking in the cavern-like room the Space Pirates had fashioned for Ridley from several tons of synthsoil and replicated flesh. The space dragon himself was slouched in a throne built into the far wall of the chamber, an enormous holoscreen suspended from the ceiling for his viewing pleasure. He waved it aside with a casual flap of his hand, eyes boring into Beaker's calm, composed expression. The turaki felt his stomach burble in anxiety, forcing one foot in front of the other to approach.

When he was halfway across the floor, the chamber doors slid closed behind him, shutting with a metallic echo. "Captain Beaker," Ridley intoned. "What brings you to my lair today?" Beaker unsnapped a pouch on his belt, pulling out a small glass vial containing a smattering of strange blue dust. "What is that?"

"A soil sample," Beaker said plainly. "Our boys in the engineering labs finally got around to analyzing it. Its composition is very, very specific, found only on a handful of planets. One of those planets is where you were attacked by Specimen 34." Ridley's draconian face shifted, his brows furrowing, jaw clenching tight. "We know you were on Zebes." Silence fell then, and the space dragon looked away for a long pause before nodding. "The major, and more importantly, Mother Brain, want to know why you were there."

Ridley let out a deep sigh, seeming to slump even further upon his throne. "The chozo," he said.

"What about them?"

"They are possibly the greatest scientific minds in all the cosmos," Ridley began, the anger typically threaded through his voice absent now. "They have brought dozens of species back from the brink of extinction throughout the centuries, sometimes through exploration and discovery of more of their kind, sometimes through engineering. My purpose in going there was not what you might think."

"I would assume you were going there to raid them and steal some of their technology," Beaker said. "Perhaps grab us some of those power suits they've left to gather dust."

"You are quiet mistaken," Ridley said. "Beaker, you were married once, yes?" The turaki nodded, keeping his expression flat. "She passed away what, six years ago?"

"Seven," the captain replied.

"But there are other turaki in the cosmos, other potential mates for you to meet. Your kind can couple and breed with humans as well," said Ridley, longing plain in his voice. "I have no such comfort to take, and never have. I have never heard of there being another space dragon in the cosmos, not since I was still a whelp. My kind are all gone, save for me." Beaker blinked rapidly, revelation dawning on him.

"You wanted them to engineer you a mate," the turaki breathed. Ridley nodded, rising from his throne. He folded his huge arms behind his back, sauntering over to the wall to Beaker's left, in which a long, narrow window had been installed, looking out into space.

"My body regenerates itself from biological material taken in," Ridley said. "And the chozo have genetic engineering science perfected, capable of manipulating almost any and all organic material they gather. They could have produced a unique female space dragon, a companion for me. We could have repopulated the galaxy with our kind once more. But that was not to be," he said wearily, turning away from the window. "When I arrived on Zebes, the chozo had been nearly wiped out. The few I encountered informed me that they were under assault by a species they call metroids.

"I offered them a deal. I would help them destroy these metroids, or at least run them off of the planet, in exchange for their help in producing this engineered mate. But the metroids were numerous, and they were not alone. Many other strange organisms had come with them, and were overrunning the planet. We were overwhelmed." Ridley returned to his throne and eased down into it. "One of the chozo scouts had discovered where the metroids were nesting, and we were planning to hit them with all of our collective strength. We might have won through, but the bird-men proved to be cowards at the last moment, abandoning me as I rushed the nest. I did what damage I could, but I was forced to flee."

Beaker ran a hand through the fur on his head and cleared his throat. "And that was when you came back to us with Specimen 34 attached to you. The metroid."

"Yes," said Ridley. "I tell you this, Beaker, because you more than the others have always afforded me the respect none of them ever tried to. If we could figure out a way to command these creatures, no force in the cosmos could stop us. I have suggested as much in a communique to Mother Brain."

"When did you send this message?"

"Two days ago," said the space dragon. "I have received no reply." Beaker nodded, filing this information away for later.

"You know how she can be," the turaki said. "Nobody quite understands her process or rationale. Still, I thank you for your candor, Ridley. I'll have to report all of this back to the major, you know."

"I am aware," said the beast, bringing his holoscreen back down with a simple hand motion. "Thank you, captain."

"For what?"

"For hearing me out and not thinking me ridiculous," Ridley replied. Beaker left him then, thinking that it was perfectly understandable, not wanting to be all alone in the whole of the universe. _Understandable, yes_, he thought, stepping back out into the corridor, _but wholly unfavorable for the safety of every other life form in the cosmos. Thank the gods the chozo betrayed him. One space dragon is more than enough._

Samus ducked the incoming punch, countering with a hard uppercut, and her virtual opponent went crashing to the mat. The roar of the crowds around her were nigh-deafening, so she reached up with her left hand and turned the volume down, bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet. On the opposite side of the living room, Richie was pumping his fists up and down, his controller sticks rattling as he tried to get his fighter up off of his back. The virtual referee got to seven before his character finally stood up again. "You're over-committing to your punches," Samus said flatly to her friend.

"You're just too fast," the chubby boy replied, huffing. Sandy stood in the archway between the living room and kitchen, watching the children at their play, making sure to warn them if they got too close to one another in real space.

"Compensate for my speed," Samus said. "Remember, your character has a strong trunk, so he can take body shots more readily than blows to the head and upper chest. Again." Richie moved his virtual character forward, jabbing faintly to work his way inside of Samus's defenses. He flailed away once he was close, but Samus maneuvered her fighter around and back to his perimeter. She could see the blue fatigue meter over his character's head, noticed it flashing. "You're still using too much energy on each swing. You need to pull your jabs in."

Round and round they went, until finally, Samus blocked an incoming hook punch with one outstretched hand and countered with a hard right to Richie's throat. His character hit the mat and didn't move, one hand on its chest to indicate it was KO'ed. The virtual ref waved his hands, and the bell sounded. The virtual arena disappeared, and the children removed their VR helmets, sweat slicking their hair to their heads. Richie smiled despite his loss. "I did a little better that time," he said.

"You did. Three whole rounds," Samus replied with a grin. She looked over at the clock on the wall. "You should get home, your mother will be wondering where you are. Miss Sandy, shall I remain here while you take Richie home?"

"Yes, sweetheart," the red-haired woman replied, fetching the control key for her shuttle from the kitchen table. "I'll be right back. Do you want me to grab some dinner from town while I'm out?"

"Pizza would be nice," Samus replied. She gave Richie a brief hug then. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, Richie." He blushed brilliant crimson, then followed Sandy out the front door. Samus armed the security system when they exited, then headed back for a shower. After, she dressed herself in a long black skirt and pale yellow blouse, grabbed her current book from her bedroom's bedside table, and settled in on the living room couch for some quality reading time.

She was a few pages along when a sudden urge compelled her to bring up the comms on the living room remote, putting through a video contact call to her father. After only a few chimes, Billy's stubble-strewn face filled the holoscreen across the room from her, and Samus leaned forward, waving. "Hello, father," she said.

"Hey there, kiddo," Billy replied. Samus could see the interior of his Hoppy's cockpit behind and around him.

"How far along are you, sir?"

"Well, I had the propulsion systems optimized about a week ago, so I'm only a day out from my destination," Billy replied.

"Your bounty head still in the same spot," she asked.

"No reports of movement on his end. I don't think he realizes he has a warrant active on the boards. Sandy treating you good?"

"Of course, sir. Miss Sandy is a very pleasant woman," Samus said. "She's taking Richie home right now. We were playing Virtua Boxer." Billy snickered.

"Kick his ass, did you?"

"I went easier on him today than the last time. He's made a little progress." Billy laughed aloud this time, shaking his head. He looked down, then back up at her through the connection. "Sir?"

"Nothing, kiddo. I just miss having you around." There was a brief pause before he sniffed, then leaned back in his seat. "You do your homework this weekend?"

"All completed Friday evening, sir," she reported. "Best not to leave such tasks lingering."

"I see you haven't picked up the lingo yet, though," Billy said. "Sweetheart, are you talking like that at school still?"

"I've gotten a little better," she answered honestly. "I find it difficult at times, though. Expectations for humanoid children my age are somewhat low. Fitting in feels eerily similar to 'dumbing myself down', as it were." Billy nodded; he seemed to appreciate her difficulties, a fact Samus was quite grateful for. "I'll keep trying."

"Well, remember, it's okay to stand out a little, kiddo. You don't want to be like _everybody_ else, right?" She nodded. "Okay. Hey, look, I'm coming up on a checkpoint station, and I need to get some more fuel, probably gonna grab some grub that isn't military-grade rations for a change. Listen to Sandy, and if there's any trouble, you get hold of me soon's you can, okay honey?"

"Understood, sir." Samus waved and cut the connection, then returned to her book, feeling much better for the brief contact. Advanced she might be, but like any child, she just wanted to see her parent for the comfort of knowing they were there. After all, she'd already lost one.

Billy got up from his pilot's seat and headed back toward the main sleeping quarters, punching in the security code and readying his stun baton. The half-naked man sitting on the bunk grunted through his cloth gag, his cuffs and ankle restraints still securely in place. Billy sheathed the stun baton and pulled out his key, undoing the ankle restraints and standing up, pulling the gag from the man's mouth. The rough-cut outlaw swung his head around so he could crack his neck and sneered up at the bounty hunter. "That's a bad habit, lying to your kid like that."

"Shut up, Metlack," Billy retorted. "Don't you have a story to get straight for the authorities when I bring you in?"

"Yeah, same story I've been saying all along, I didn't touch the guy." The outlaw snorted, looked away.

"Right. He just tripped and landed on your knife with his throat. Got it. Now," Billy said, sitting down on the steps leading up out of the room into the short passageway through the vessel. "I've got a few questions for you before we get to the station. You answer them nicely, maybe I forget to mention the case I found you with out there," the bounty hunter said. "Play me around, get cute with me, and the case goes in with you. You're lucky the victim lived; you'll only get a couple of years for aggravated assault. But if those drugs show up with you, well, there's gonna be an '80' candle on your cake the first year you get out of lockup."

Metlack hung his head, lips pouted out. Billy had the man dead to rights, but he was no lying. If Metlack answered him to the best of his ability, and Billy didn't suspect he was being dishonest in any way, he would jettison the case of narcotics into empty space. But if the bounty head tried to screw with him, he'd be sitting in a cell for most of the remainder of his days.

"All right," Metlack grumped. "Ask your questions."

"Excellent. Firstly, did you ever stop over to Tallon IV while in the system?" Metlack shrugged, nodded.

"Yeah, once or twice. Those bird-people have the best medical tech, and I got a condition that needs regular treatment, or used to. Stuff they did to me? Cleared most of it right up. I got a nervous tick now, but it's a small price for what they managed for me."

"What was it?"

"Lung cancer," Metlack said. "When I first got to the system, I had about five, maybe six years at the outside. Now? Now I'm healthy as an ox, thanks to them. They're goddamn miracle workers."

"Okay, good. So you know the chozo," Billy said. "You ever hear the name Phelaxia Narhomis?" Metlack scrunched up his face, seeming to try to recall. He finally shook his head.

"Can't say as that rings a bell, but I may well have. A lot of them have weird names, and some of them have two names, one among themselves, and another they use for humans and such. It can get confusing."

"Understandable," Billy said, feeling deflated. "Anything stand out about them while you were in the system?"

"Yeah, one thing for sure," said Metlack. "After I moved to Tallon I, settled in a couple months back, there was this huge influx of chozo ships from another system. Well, I say huge, but it was like, four cruisers. I overheard rumors around the city that they were refugees from one of their colony planets, that they'd been run off by these freaky alien things. Most of the ones that showed up were wounded, a lot of them died. I think they only had about twenty survivors or something, it was pretty bad."

Billy thought there might not be much more for Metlack to tell him, but he pushed ahead anyway. "Did those ones who survived stay on Tallon I?"

"Oh yeah," said Metlack in a matter-of-fact tone. "You almost knocked one of them over when you dragged me out of my place, in fact. Guy calls himself Blue Eyes." Billy thanked Metlack for his cooperation, then helped the man to his feet and led him back to the waste chute at the rear of the ship. Billy set the case with its load of narcotics in the chute, and let Metlack watch as it was jettisoned out into the empty expanse of space. When the outlaw broke down weeping, thanking him for his mercy through wet, snot-strewn sobs, Billy patted him on the shoulder and helped him back to the sleeping quarters.

Bounty hunter he may have been, but Billy Aran was a man of his word.

"Mastermind approaching. Linking cables engaging," said the ensign as major Kaufman and captain Beaker stood behind him at the controls. The entire ship rumbled and shook for a minute before settling once again. "Links are engaged. Docking passages are now extending. Message from Rake III indicates they've been delayed by an encounter with Galactic Federation patrols."

"Fuck," Kaufman grumbled, shaking his head. He was an older human, his snow-white hair kept short in a brush cut, the weathered lines of his face speaking of hard-earned experience. He held himself in a perfectly rigid stance, hands folded behind his back. Once a commanding officer in the Galactic Federation Militia, he had retained most of his military mannerisms when he joined the Space Pirates. Beaker had, for many years, suspected the man's motives, until he learned that the Galactic Federation would not extend medical benefits to Kaufman's son, who had as a result perished from a debilitating disease. When he passed away, Kaufman rallied against the Federation and its policies of saving money over saving lives, and they had summarily dismissed him from their ranks.

"Do we send a message back, sir," Beaker asked quietly.

"No. We can't risk an intercept-and-pinpoint. Mother Brain would be furious. We tell her the situation, then let her decide what we do. Just in case, though, have a squadron of fighters prepped and ready to deploy to assist."

"Aye, sir." Beaker relayed the orders to a nearby sergeant, who then hustled away from the bridge. The ensign looked over his shoulder at the commanding officers.

"Sirs, Mother Brain requests your presence, along with Ridley." Kaufman made a disgusted sound in his throat, shaking his head. He gave Beaker a stern look.

"Go fetch the beast. I'll go on ahead," Kaufman ordered, stalking away from the controls. When he was off the bridge, the ensign cleared his throat for Beaker's attention.

"Doesn't care for him all that much, does he," the young man asked.

"No. He doesn't like that Ridley has no official rank, no defined level of authority. It threatens his command," said the turaki. "Keep me posted on the status of Rake III via text," he added quietly, heading off to Ridley's chamber. When he arrived, the space dragon was in his reduced size, still towering over Beaker at ten feet in height, his wings flapping loudly as he flew around the chamber. "Ridley! Mother Brain requests our presence on the Mastermind," he called out. The space dragon descended, landing heavily twenty feet away, the floor rumbling as his body touched down. His leathery wings folded down and back into his back, an awful, wet slap of flesh warping down into more flesh and meat echoing in Beaker's ears.

"She does, does she," the beast rumbled. "Well, we wouldn't want to disappoint, would we, captain?" Beaker, dressed in his formal officer's uniform, led the space dragon up the passageway to the docking tunnel door, which slid aside after he entered his personal code. A long, dark metal corridor opened up before them, their footfalls echoing as they carried on down the pathway, the void of space all around them, kept out only by a few feet of metal and pipes.

Beaker hated going from one vessel to another this way, but it was the most efficient method of cruiser-to-cruiser passage. He'd heard plenty of horror stories about stray asteroids, no larger than a fist, punching through docking corridors and killing people passing between ships. It had happened within the organization even, some seven years earlier. He didn't like to think about it, but couldn't stop himself when in such a corridor. He quickened his pace, and heard Ridley chuckling behind him.

"That's right. You wouldn't survive a rupture, would you," the beast jested behind him, chortling under his breath. "Poor little turaki. Your breed really isn't much more durable than humans, are you?"

"Not really, no," Beaker said, breathing easier as they passed into an outer corridor of the Mastermind. Several hulking men and women, looking for all intents and purposes like upright grasshoppers in combat armor, stood waiting for them just beyond the docking corridor door, weapons in hand. Known as gelborn, these insect-like creatures were among the latest civilized inductees to the Space Pirates organization. They hailed from a system far on the fringes of the Galactic Federation, and as an entire race had rejected their rule.

"I am captain Beaker, and this is Ridley. We were requested by Mother Brain, along with major Kaufman. He should have arrived a few minutes ago," the turaki said to the gelborn. One of the insect-men made a series of clicks and whines with its mouth, and a metal collar on its throat blinked with a faint orange light. Moments later, an automated computer voice spoke from the collar.

"Affirmative. The one called Kaufman has been escorted to the Mother Brain. We will escort you two to her now," it said. Beaker and Ridley followed this lead gelborn, flanked on either side by the other troopers. Mastermind was a marvelous vessel to behold, the walls lined with various pipes, command consoles, and shimmering data screens every few feet. Many of the crew members they passed were also gelborn, with a few humans and turaki smattered throughout. As they passed one open chamber, Beaker peeked in and saw what he could only think of as a minotaur in workman's coveralls, carrying a huge crate on his back among shelving units.

After what seemed an eternity, the gelborn led the pair to a set of wide blast doors, which opened after the lead gelborn entered a code on a nearby keypad. The doors whooshed open swiftly, revealing a long, sloping chamber which resembled a throne room in ancient Earth castles. At the far end, suspended in her nutrient tank, floated Mother Brain. Shaped like a gigantic, crimson human brain, complete with spinal cord and a variation of wide, dish-like eyes and an insectile mouth on what could loosely be called a face, the organism which commanded the Space Pirates was as terrifying to behold as Ridley in his full form, if not more so. Without limbs or a real body to speak of, one might assume she was vulnerable, frail, but one would be very, very wrong.

Beaker had heard tales of Mother Brain's psionic powers, and knew better than to think anything, even Ridley, could threaten her. Kaufman stood at the foot of a set of steps leading up to Mother Brain's tank, rigid as ever. Mother Brain's dish-like eyes flickered up, latching onto Beaker, and the turaki felt an intense pressure pushing in all over his body. "Ahhhh," he heard in his head, a raspy, sandpaper-on-stone voice echoing. It had a vaguely feminine quality to it, and he knew it was Mother Brain speaking to him. "You have arrived. Come forth, captain. Come forth, Ridley."

The turaki and space dragon descended the slope toward where Kaufman stood waiting for them, the major now half-turned toward them. Beaker looked to his side, and saw a terrifying thing; Ridley's eyes held a hint of fear. It wasn't much, and was only there for a moment, but it couldn't be denied. Ridley, who had destroyed entire planets on his own, was afraid of Mother Brain. When they stood a few feet from Kaufman they halted, and Beaker snapped off a salute to his superior officer and his master. "Sir, ma'am," he said to each in turn.

"Oh, no need to stand on ceremony here, captain," Mother Brain cooed, her voice once again echoing in his mind, but not his ears. "What word from Rake III?"

"They are delayed, ma'am," Beaker said. "They are engaged with Galactic Federation patrol ships in a battle. Ensign Bellur has been ordered to keep me updated via comp text," he said, lifting his left arm to show her his wrist mounted computer.

"Very well," she replied. "I sense the presence of a very different life form on board your vessel. You call it," she said, and Beaker felt something slithering through his thoughts, like a tentacle brushing his brain. "Specimen 34," she sighed.

"Yes, ma'am. Ridley came across them on Zebes, outside of Federation space," the turaki captain replied. He turned as Ridley grunted, the space dragon clapping his huge hands to the sides of his reptilian head. Ridley took a step back, then dropped to one knee, lowering his head and groaning.

"It hurts, doesn't it," Mother Brain asked gently, a dark chuckle bubbling up through Beaker's mind. "You should not resist, dragon. I am merely trying to see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Let me in, and the pain will go away." To his credit, the space dragon seemed to continue his resistance, until finally he loosed a scream that filled the enormous chamber, a primal sound that threw Beaker and Kaufman physically to the floor, their own hands now flying up to protect their ears. Ridley dropped onto his side, curling into a fetal ball, shuddering. "That's better, oh so much better, my sweet child," Mother Brain rasped.

If Beaker had a weapon, he might have blown his own brains out there and then, just to put a stop to the pressure and agony in his head. It took an unknown amount of time for the pain to subside, for the pressure to ease on its own. "Dear gods," he whispered to himself, getting up onto his hands and knees. "Major?" He looked over at the human officer, who remained laying flat on the floor. "Major?" The turaki crawled over to where Kaufman lay, and as soon as he saw the man's face, Beaker turned his head aside and vomited explosively on the floor.

Kaufman's eyes had ruptured, blood leaking from his sockets and his ears. "Poor man," Mother Brain said. "He couldn't take it, frail as he was. Had he been a few years younger, not had such high blood pressure already, he might have survived. It looks like you've earned a field promotion, captain Beaker," she said, laughing softly. Beaker felt his stomach heave again, but he fought it down with an effort, managing to get swaying back to his feet. A huge hand caught him as he stumbled back, and he saw Ridley standing beside him, giving him a blank stare. "I have learned all that I need to know from the three of you. Return to your ship, major Beaker. I will have a message sent to your crew to inform them of the change in command."

"Aye, ma'am," he said weakly, turning around and shuffling away, one hand clamped to his stomach. Ridley followed right behind him, and when they were back out in the corridor, the gelborn had left only their leader behind to guide them back to the docking tunnel. The pair remained silent most of the way through the tunnel, but just before getting back aboard their ship, the space dragon put one hand on Beaker's shoulder, turned him gently around.

"We never speak of this," Ridley said evenly. Beaker nodded, hand coming away from his gut. "And we are agreed as well, I think, in saying that that thing is not to be trifled with."

"Definitely." The duo separated then, Ridley heading to his chamber, and Beaker heading to the bridge to assume command. It had been a strange day, and was only going to get stranger.


	7. Chapter 7- The Long Game

Billy took the cup from Blue Eyes with a quiet word of thanks, sipping the sweet mixture and setting it on the coffee table between them. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you better news, Mr. Aran," said the bird-man softly, easing down onto the chair across from the bounty hunter. "But you will hopefully be pleased to know that I am familiar with the data you've brought me, as are many of us from Zebes."

"That's excellent," said Billy. "So, what can you tell me about this other bit of genetic code?"

"It comes from a species known to us as metroids. They are a parasitic life form, hive-minded and extremely aggressive. We have dealt with them for several hundred years, Mr. Aran, and they are by far one of the most deadly entities we've ever faced. There is only one other life form we fear more, but they have been blissfully absent from our notice for over a century."

"Ah," said Billy, taking another sip of his tea. "So these metroids, or this specific bit of genetic material, do you have any idea how it might affect my daughter?"

"Well," said Blue Eyes, crossing one foot onto the opposite knee in a relaxed posture, his tea cup in hand. "There's no real telling at this moment. The coding seems to indicate that there's a kind of hormone present in your daughter which is responsible for the metroids' increased biological regenerative properties. Has your daughter ever suffered a major injury?"

"Not since she started living with me," Billy said. "She lived with her mother exclusively until a few months ago. I didn't even know she existed until her mother died and the authorities tracked me down to take her in." Blue Eyes cocked his head to one side, eyebrows raised.

"I see. Curious. How are you taking to fatherhood?" Billy snorted, shaking his head.

"I don't know, really. I'd like to think I'm doing okay, but it's hard to gauge, you know? I just want to make sure she's healthy and happy. Well, as happy as she can be."

"What do you mean by that?" Billy hadn't intended to, but he wound up spending the better part of an hour then telling Blue Eyes about Samus, how her intelligence seemed to be limiting her emotional development, how her physical capabilities made her come across as competent but possibly deadly in the right circumstances. When he was finished, three cups of tea later, he sighed, hung his head. Blue Eyes chuckled low in his throat and set his cup aside. "Mr. Aran, considering your circumstances, I believe you're doing a remarkable job."

"Really?"

"Goodness, yes. We chozo are much as you've described Samus, taciturn and sometimes downright stoic in our youth. When you consider that approximately ten percent of her genetic makeup is chozo, it's actually rather a surprise that you've managed to maintain any kind of emotional bond with her at all, from her end. You've nothing to worry about, Mr. Aran. As a matter of fact, you should return home now, as quickly as you can. Help her grow, and teach her how to be the best version of herself that she can be. There will be things you cannot teach her, cannot help her with, but what parent can claim to be able to do everything for their child on their own?"

By the time Billy left the surface of Tallon I, he had decided that Blue Eyes was wise in ways he could never hope to be. He also decided that the chozo had given him the best advice anyone could- he was going to go back to K-L2 and be the best father to Samus that he could be.

Two months after the meeting with Mother Brain which had resulted in his taking command of the cruiser, Beaker stood on the bridge in his command uniform, watching through the front viewer windows as the ship neared Zebes. The planet's dark blue surface grew larger and larger before him, and three score tiny silver shapes flitted out ahead of the cruiser from both sides. Single-pilot fighter ships, almost the entire fleet at their disposal, streaked down toward the planet's surface as the cruiser came to a halt, staying well out of Zebes's gravitational field.

"Sir, incoming transmission from Mastermind," said the ensign.

"Patch it through," Beaker said. There came a loud click, followed by an all-too-familiar voice, amplified by systems so complex that he'd never understand them.

"This is Mother Brain, contacting all eight cruisers and their commanding officers. If you have not already, deploy your fighter vessels to the planet's surface, and prepare to launch ground assault forces in two hours' time. When we have been cleared for touchdown, Mastermind will land first, followed by the remainder of the fleet. Stalwart Companion and Sweet Striker will remain in orbit as advance guard. Please chime your acknowledgment." Eight chimes sounded, including Beaker's, activated by a small green button on the console before him. "Thank you. Ridley, if you're listening, you will deploy with the ground assault and lead the way into the complex located near Mastermind's planned landing coordinates. If he cannot hear this message, major Beaker, ensure that it is passed along to him." He chimed another acknowledgement. "Thank you. Now, Space Pirates, commence the assault!"

Hundreds of fighter ships streaked ahead, down to the surface of planet Zebes. As they flew down, Beaker wondered for just a moment what might happen to any of the chozo who had not been able to escape the planet's surface. He hoped they had all managed to get away, because though he was no fan of the Galactic Federation, escape into their welcome arms would be far preferable to being ensnared and questioned by his master.

She was a monster of a different color.

Billy tossed the baseball back to Samus, who stretched out her arm as far as she could, the loud 'smack' of the ball on the leather pleasing to the bounty hunter's ears. "So, you looking forward to summer break, honey?"

"I don't know," she replied, hurling the ball back to him across the yard. "I'm going to miss some of my classmates. They might not be in my class next year."

"Yeah, that can be tough," he said, catching the ball easily. "But your pal Richie will still be coming over, right?"

"Affirmative," she replied. "Sir, I have a question of a serious nature," she said, catching the ball.

"Okay. What's on your mind, kiddo?"

"Is Miss Sandy going to be my new mom," she asked. The ball went right by Billy's head, and he just blinked at his daughter. He shook off his surprise and barked out an awkward laugh.

"W-why do you ask that?"

"Well, she's been staying over for the last two weeks," Samus said, jogging past him to grab up the ball, returning to her previous spot and tossing him the ball. This time he caught it, though just barely. "I noticed she has moved many of her clothes into your bedroom. The other day, you referred to it as 'our room' when asking her to grab your boots from under the bed. If she is moving in, it would logically follow that you might some day marry her, which would make her my stepmother."

"Um, honey?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Stop thinking logically for a few minutes and give your old man a break," Billy said. Samus gave him an impish grin and caught his toss, then headed inside to use the bathroom. Billy sauntered in, grabbing himself a cup of coffee and giving Sandy a peck on the cheek as he sat down with her at the kitchen table. "You want to hear something funny," he asked.

"I'm always up for a laugh," she replied, brushing one hand through her long, curly locks.

"Samus just asked me if you were going to be her new mother," he said, guffawing as Sandy sprayed coffee all over the table in response. She got up giggling, grabbing a towel to dry off the table.

"Well where the hell did she get that idea," Sandy asked between laughs, cleaning up her mess.

"She broke it down very logically to me," said Billy.

"As only she can," Sandy replied. "Jesus please us, Billy, that little girl's got one hell of a mind in that head of hers."

"Tell me about it," he replied. As Sandy took the wet towel through a small doorway into the laundry room, Billy quietly thought about it. There really wasn't any reason to suggest they should get married, particularly when they had only _just_ agreed to move in together. But Samus's question rattled around in his head, until Billy had a wild thought strike him. When Sandy came back into the kitchen, he asked her quietly, "Do you think maybe that's what she's hoping for?"

"Well, it would make sense," Sandy said, matching his volume. They'd learned over the course of several weeks now just how loud or quiet they had to be in order to be heard by the Svestri girl, and had begun adjusting accordingly. "Most children crave structure, openly or not, and they tend to do best in a two-parent home. She might be letting us know that what she wants is a cohesive family unit, which is something she's never had before."

Billy heard the door of the bathroom open and the rapid footfalls of Samus coming back toward the front door. She had her mitt on her hand once more, ball in the other palm. "You ready," she asked.

"You know it," he replied, following her outdoors once again.

Samuel had been prepared to take a nice, long break from his work when the fleet made its landing. He'd been under the assumption that once the ships all landed that there would be weeks of setup ahead of them. He had been woefully wrong. The compound the chozo had left behind had been mostly intact when they arrived, installing Mother Brain deep within its catacombs. She had commanded repairs be made as necessary to bring all of the facilities up to running order, and all of the transferrable equipment on the cruisers was brought within.

The complex ran just over a hundred miles from one end to the other, a magnificent and enormous structure that also went almost thirty miles deep underground. The architecture was bizarre for the mostly human and turaki crews, and the stone statues crafted in homage to chozo of the past creeped Samuel out to the core. But he said nothing about it; after all, he was just a tech-head with a strong background in biological engineering and energy theory.

It only took four days after the landing and assault for Specimen 34 and all of its accompanying gear to be transferred to a laboratory not far from Mother Brain's personal chambers in the bowels of the complex. Since then, using the data restored from the chozo computers, he had learned that it was called a metroid, and the chozo had only a limited understanding of the species. They had performed numerous dissections, but there was very little data on living specimens.

Every test Samuel and his comrades had run came back with inconclusive or clearly flawed data. As he left the metroid's control station to go check on his other work, Samuel whistled idly to himself, smiling at his fellow engineers. Many of the experiments they were running would not have been possible in the Galactic Federation; restrictions and regulations would have ground their work to a complete halt in most cases. Samuel was himself working on testing the effects of various types of energy waves on standard cruiser armor plating.

The technician turned on a device which fired short bursts of a variety of different energy waves at the mounted plate braced near the rear wall of the chamber. He input a variation on the alpha wavelength he hadn't yet tested, adjusted the targeting display on the device, and clicked a button. The cannon attached to his control mechanism fired a single short bolt at the plate, which vibrated and glowed red, but held steady, showing no significant damage after a half-minute cooldown period. He recorded his findings, and continued for a short while with alpha wave variants.

After a short while, Samuel adjusted the wave output, selecting a primary beta wave, and fired the test bolt. As soon as he fired the cannon, he heard something beeping loudly from the metroid's control panel. Forgetting all about the need to record the first shot's results, he raced over to the metroid, three other technicians already crowding the space.

The metroid was active in its tank, its strange, gelatinous tentacles flapping about inside, its body giving off a strange, frenetic neon yellow glow. "What the hell happened," Samuel blurted out as he closed in on his comrades, trying to see the screen readouts.

"We don't know," another technician said. "The activity alarm went off, and the thing just started moving around!" They all flinched as Samuel's test cannon fired another beta wave bolt at the test panel, and he cursed under his breath; he'd forgotten to shut off the auto-fire command. Yet, when the bolt fired, the metroid began thrashing around again inside of its tank, seeming to respond to the beta wave energy's proximity. He grabbed one of the techs and spun him around, shoving him toward the cannon controls. "Shut off the auto-fire sequence," he barked, rushing out of the lab.

Samuel was terrified of Mother Brain, as were all of the Space Pirates, but he thought she would want to know what he was thinking about doing.

The summer proved a long and happy one for the Arans. Samus came a little more out of her shell, spending a great deal of her time with Richie and two other friends they'd made in school, Amanda and Brad. They played in the fields and woods near the Aran home, games of catch and hide-and-go-seek, occasionally wrangling more kids from the nearby town into playing a game of pickup soccer or football on the huge property Billy owned.

It wasn't all smiles and laughter, though, as no season could pass for any child without a few negative knocks. Samus lost her last baby tooth, a molar, in a painful collision with one of the bigger boys from town during a vicious tackle she delivered on him. Her mouth had been full of blood, and she'd spat crimson all the way back up into the house. She didn't cry, though Billy could only imagine the pain was horrific. She was ever the little trooper.

As for the second downturn of Samus's vacation, well, it was something that Billy really couldn't help. Her tenth birthday came, her first without her mother present, and she seemed painfully aware of her mother's absence as Billy gave the Svestri girl her presents. Sandy and Billy tried comforting her, and though she still would not cry, Samus's mood was quiet and reserved despite their best efforts.

Sandy was fully moved in halfway through the summer, and Billy only took one more bounty contract during the season, one which only took him away from the planet for four days, and paid handsomely. The family as a whole was doing well, and Samus was preparing to head back to school. She would be entering her final year of being with a single teacher and group of students, a facet she was looking forward to being done with. She found she craved variety and change, and being stuck with the same group of people every day at school would not help with that craving.

With two days remaining to her vacation, Samus woke, stretched, and rubbed at her chest, which had been inexplicably sore the last couple of weeks. She headed into the bathroom to shower and wake herself up further, taking special care to apply lotion to her hands after she finished drying off. This too had been bothering her in the last week or so, a sudden dryness and itch causing her hands to become irritated at random intervals. Her nails seemed to have grown and hardened as well, quite a bit in a very short period of time.

As she pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a short sleeved green tee, Samus paused, aware of a seemingly foreign thought floating to the surface of her mind; _someone is coming, and they aren't nice._ This kind of prescient thought had never bounced around inside of her mind, and the quiet certainty of it brought about a seldom-felt emotion in her; fear. Someone was coming, and they intended to hurt either her, or one of her guardians.

The young Svestri girl crept to Billy and Sandy's bedroom door, listening to the soft rumble of their snores as they enjoyed a rare opportunity to sleep in. She slipped silently back to her bedroom, took out the holdout blaster Billy had given her so long ago now, and made her way outside. It didn't take long for her to notice the glimmer where it didn't belong, a kind of heat shimmer that had no place out in the high grass.

Keeping the blaster tucked out of sight in her waistband at the small of her back, Samus sauntered around the front yard, lifting her soccer ball up with a flip of her foot and bouncing it off of her knees and feet, keeping it aloft. She popped it up high once, and performed a follow-up hook kick, launching the ball just out and over the shimmer. She grunted loudly, muttering at herself as she jogged after it.

When she was two feet beyond the shimmer, she drew out the blaster and whirled about, pressing the barrel against the forehead of a rapidly materializing turaki in a long white lab coat, his stealth field generator disrupted by close proximity to the vibrating power cell of the weapon. "You have three options," she said, eyes half-lidded, knees slightly bent in a ready stance in case he should try to grab at her weapon. "One, you can apologize for snooping, explain why you're here, and go away. Two, you can keep your explanations to yourself and run, and I'll only take one or two shots on stun setting, just for sport. Or three, you can try to disarm me and leave me explaining to my father and local law enforcement why there's a turaki missing a significant portion of his head on our property. Choose quickly, and choose wisely."

The turaki doctor let out a nervous, tittering laugh, a sound which ground on Samus's ears. "I'm quite sorry, my child, for the intrusion, and for the snooping, as you say," he said, slowly rising to his feet and taking two long steps back, his hands raised to the sides of his head in a sign of surrender. "My name is Doctor Wretz. I'm a geneticist. Your father brought some samples of yours to my lab some months back, and I must confess, I've become quite fascinated with the results of the tests I ran. I wanted to come and possibly procure a fresher sample for analysis."

"And you wanted to do this unobserved," she said, keeping her weapon trained on him. "Doesn't seem precisely ethical for a man of your profession, doctor." The turaki's nose wriggled back and forth, and he snorted.

"That's quite a vocabulary you have, young lady," he said. "You pick up words quite easily, don't you?"

"I do," she said. "My linguistic skills are not what you're here to observe, however, as you have admitted. If I give you a sample of my blood, will you go away and stay away?" The turaki scientist seemed to weigh this offer, then shook his head slightly.

"I'd also like to perform a full bio-scan for comparative study," he replied. "I have a device with me that can take the readings necessary. It would only take a few minutes," he added. Samus waggled the weapon at him, and he took a few more steps back.

"Will it work from there?" The turaki nodded, quickly reaching into his coat for a small orange box, which he set on the ground, adjusted, and tapped twice. A beam of yellow light flashed out over Samus's body, going from the top of her head down to the ground and back again, humming softly as it scanned her. "You're fortunate it was me who spotted you out here. If my father had found you, he likely would have killed you and asked questions later."

"Your father didn't strike me as a rash man when I met with him," said the doctor, turning off his machine. When he tucked it away, he then produced a small glass blood slide and a sample jabber, setting them on the ground and stepping even further away from Samus. The Svestri girl walked over, took up the jabber, and stuck herself in the back of the hand quickly, setting the object back down atop the blood slide calmly. She then backed away herself while Wretz collected the jabber and applied the drops of blood to his slide, putting the glass in a secure little box in one of his pockets. "I thank you for this, young lady. You've been very patient with me."

"Moreso than you deserve," she replied. "Now go away, Doctor Wretz. If I see you here again, uninvited, I will shoot you. Nod if you understand." He nodded, quickly, and turned to run away as fast as he could, which, for the turaki, was quite fast indeed. Samus tucked the weapon away once more, and made her way back inside. As she slipped back into her bedroom, she heard her father grumbling down the hall, coming awake for the day.

She smiled to herself as she tucked the pistol away under her bed, pleased that she had dealt with the situation without having to rely on her father.

That same summer proved eventful for the Space Pirates as well, now using Zebes as their organization's home base. Through a series of experiments, they had perfected a method of causing the metroids to spontaneously divide, exposing them to high doses of beta-4 radiation making them vibrate and split into two smaller, separate life forms. Within minutes of exposure and splitting, the two metroids would expand to full size, each with independent motion and behaviors.

These freshly created beings were brand new, however, and easily pulled under the psychic influence of Mother Brain. Nobody understood how precisely her psionic powers worked, but with hive-mind creatures, she seemed able to dominate them entirely, controlling them as a whole. This was made even more simple by the fact that the newly formed metroids had no developed mental defenses.

The organization had brought about half of their numbers to Zebes by season's end, and though the Galactic Federation didn't seem interested in trying to find them, there were plenty of other smaller government agencies and militias which had managed to come close enough to the planet to be obliterated, failing to report back the location of the Space Pirates's home base. In all the fighting, the outlaws had lost only around a hundred men and women, but five of those had been ranking officers. The change in the internal political dynamics had been interesting, to say the least, for some.

Major Beaker, for instance, now had a captain serving as his executive officer who clearly wanted his post, and would do anything short of outright murder to get it. The turaki major had come within inches of grievous injury in several instances, avoiding 'accidental' plasma pipe bursts by scant feet, catching himself on railings when someone bumped into him going up or down levels within the complex, and other such potential catastrophes. After his latest near-miss incident, in which the lunch he'd ordered had been sent to the wrong turaki, resulting in that other poor man's battle with outrageous diarrhea, a single thought arose every time Beaker saw the new X-O; _Coincidence has been cancelled._

It was a line from a book he'd read almost twenty years earlier, an ancient fiction novel brought to the turaki peoples from Earth, when the humans expanded out into the cosmos. He couldn't recall the name of it, but he thought it a wonderful line, and very fitting. He knew Fitchman would try something else, and soon. That was why, at that moment, the turaki major followed the large yellow arrows painted on the right-hand walls of the complex's hallway, stopping every now and then to check and reconfirm that they were still guiding him where he wanted to go.

As he caught himself stutter-stepping to catch his balance after stepping on a loose rock, Beaker heard a scrape followed by a pained/shocked grunt behind him. He stopped and turned himself around halfway, a cruel grin curling his lips. He wouldn't have normally taken such pleasure in what was, at that moment, being done to Fitchman, but the man was demonstrably trying to do him harm, possibly even kill him. In a bizarre way, it made sense; one of the most common ways to advance through the ranks of the Space Pirates was for one's superior officer to suffer an 'accident'. Fitchman was just following the natural order of things.

A thick, wet snapping sound echoed from the narrow passageway he'd passed only moments earlier, and he thought, _Well, he _was _following it. Now it sounds like he's following whatever Ridley had for breakfast today._ The space dragon had no self-restraint when it came to eating the people he killed, and here, from the sounds of it, he kept true to his usual form. There came a thick gurgle from the passageway Ridley had snatched Fitchman from, followed by a torn and bloody arm being flung out into the hall, bone clattering uselessly against the tunnel floor.

And that was just a highlight of the season for the Space Pirates.

Two more years of relative peace passed for the Aran family, which became a real family just before Samus started seventh grade. Billy and Sandy had a small, private wedding ceremony, and for the first time during the exchange of vows, Billy Aran had peeked over at his daughter and seen a single tear leave a shining track down one cheek. He'd never seen her cry before, not even when she broke her wrist falling out of a tree she'd been climbing only five months earlier.

The Galactic Federation had re-established its domain over the planet, which quickly made its inhabitants refer to it once again as K-2L, a small change but one that had a major impact on Samus's classes. With the Federation government getting involved once again, the educational curriculum changed, making it immensely more difficult for many of her classmates. Samus herself didn't seem affected at all; she still earned straight-A's, and quickly became known as something of a brainiac among her peers.

Her own attentions were more personally focused, however, dealing with the physical changes that were overtaking her at a pace far outstripping that of her fellow twelve-year-old girls. She'd developed breasts and begun menstruation, which turned out to be less of a nightmare for Billy than he had feared it would be, because Samus acted based on logic; she asked her stepmother all of the pertinent questions related to female biology. The bounty hunter felt more of a survivor for having dodged those conversations than for dodging real bullets in combat.

Two weeks into her eighth grade year, Samus strode through the front door of the house with her hair, now dyed blond to help her fit in more with her classmates, tied back into a long braid. She paused as she caught sight of her father through the kitchen doorway, his leg in a heavy plaster cast, propped up on a chair. His smallest two toes were missing, angry red welt scars where they should have been. "What happened," she asked, setting her bag down and approaching her father, whose eyes were droopy, half-dazed.

"I caught Zerohass Bishop," Billy said, his words slurred, Sandy helping him take a drink from a bottle of water. "Had to wrestle his blaster away, he got off a good shot. No more little piggies with roast beef or going wee wee wee all the way home," he said, snickering at his own witicism.

"I assume he's sedated," Samus said to Sandy, who nodded. Her whole face screamed 'worry', and Samus thought this might be the day she finally asked Billy to retire from bounty hunting, perhaps take up a local post as a peace officer with the Federation. Samus and Sandy had talked about wanting him to be home more, to take fewer risks with his life. This seemed like just the sort of incident that would make their case.

The Svestri girl helped Sandy get Billy settled into their room (help might have been misleading- Samus bodily lifted her father up and carried him by herself), then took herself out to the living room to do her homework before inquiring about dinner. As she attacked her history work, Samus felt an unexplained chill run through her, much as she had a couple of years earlier, when Dr. Wretz had been spying on the house, on her. She had come to learn that these sensations weren't always specific to her, though; in some cases, she would feel the chill, then later find out something horrible had happened halfway across the planet. She didn't understand the significance of this, but a little research informed her that the chozo, with whom she shared some genetic code, were known to have an innate ability to sense violence or malign intent.

She refocused herself on her homework, and let the feeling go for the time being. She would think back on it later, though.

"You are certain you've discovered these deposits without being detected," Mother Brain asked, her voice bouncing around back and forth inside of Beaker's skull. The turaki squinted his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and sighed.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "The lotarium deposits are more than large enough for our purposes. The Galactic Federation only had a few token patrol vessels around the system, all of which could be easily dispatched with a handful of cruisers. But harvesting the material quickly will be difficult unless we modify some of our troop transport vessels."

"I understand your concern, lieutenant-colonel," Mother Brain rasped, the fluids in her tank bubbling. Beaker always thought this a vulgar sight, particularly since he learned from one of her technicians that the bubbles indicated the brain-like life form was eliminating waste. _I'm trying to have a serious discussion, and she's taking a shit,_ he thought. _Wonderful._ If the psionic creature heard his thoughts, she opted to ignore them. "You wish to minimize losses to our host. But I want that lotarium, now. You will take Ridley with you on board your ship, and he will retrieve the material and load it onto supply ships. Take six cruisers and load as many fighters as you need to keep the Federation from interrupting the operation, then bring everything you gather back here to Zebes."

The turaki shuddered, the mere thought of dealing with Ridley summoning a dying animal howl in the woodland landscape of his mind. The space dragon had become hermitic and strange, even to him, over the last year. He spoke in riddles, when he even opted to speak, and he had begun growing once more, expanding until he was nearly the size of a transport shuttle himself. Whatever sense of cameraderie he and the turaki had once had was almost completely gone.

"I will obey, Mother Brain," Beaker said, offering her a stiff salute before turning on his heel to stride out of her chamber. There was dark business ahead, and he would just have to steel himself to the notion that he would once again be trapped in a cruiser with Ridley. "At least he'll have the chance to work out his aggression," he muttered to himself as he walked the yawning, dark corridors of planet Zebes and its complex.


	8. Chapter 8- Annihilation

Billy tried not to let his anxiety show, but outside of those times when he was committed to a bounty job or engaged in a combat situation, he had effectively no poker face. Samus gave him an impish grin and jogged around in front of him, hands tucked behind her back as she tossed her hair to one side. "I promise I won't get us killed, dad," she teased, turning around and jogging the rest of the way to the shuttle. She waved the activation fob in front of the security panel, and the entrance hatch swung up for her. She climbed into the Hoppy, Billy standing with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.

The spaceport had a separate landing/launching pad reserved just for student fliers. Being twelve, Samus could test for her Class 3 Operator's License within the Galactic Federation's guidelines, but only if she logged in a minimum of twenty hours of practice flight. Billy didn't foresee there being any trouble with this, as Samus was an astute student in all things she did. But just lately, she'd developed a habit of doing and saying things that she seemed to know would make him nervous. Flying erratically seemed to fit within that paradigm, and he worried that this twisted humour might get them into lethal trouble.

Billy climbed into his ship, closing the hatch behind him and taking in a deep breath. He hadn't been on the Hoppy since his last hunt, and the ashen smell of scorched metal and burnt blood still clung to the ship's interior. He'd been sloppy, forgetting to check Bishop for a holdout weapon before bringing the outlaw on board. It had cost him two of his toes and a small piece along the side of his foot. Ultimately, it was going to cost him the career he'd spent so many years building up.

He was going to sign on with the Galactic Federation's Reserve Militia.

Billy let out a grunt as he settled into the co-pilot's seat in the cockpit, going over the initial system checks to make sure Samus had already performed them. When he saw that it had all been done, he nodded, looking over at his daughter. Some of the green of her hair was starting to show through again, but with the soft glow of the holoscreen lights illuminating her features, he saw a loveliness that no strange hair color could cut against.

"Okay, your preliminaries are done, that's good," Billy said, clearing his throat. He put on his harness straps, as did she, and made a mental note to adjust the feeder latches after the practice flight. "Now, what's next?"

"I'm in Federation space, so I have to do a patch check for official flights and ensure my lift pattern doesn't pass within fifteen-hundred yards of those," the Svestri girl said, her fingers flying over the holoboard to check the information. "As an extra precaution, I'm going to perform a deep range sensor sweep and check any and all inbound emergency info lines for relevant information," she said. Samus clicked and clacked along, but after a few moments, she blinked rapidly, her neck and shoulders bunching, going stiff.

"Samus? Honey, what's the matter," Billy asked, perturbed by her palpable apprehension.

"Sir," she said, her tone going flat, he eyes half-closing as her instincts took over, crushing down what bit of emotional development she'd made since coming into his care. It wasn't often anymore that she did this, but when it happened, Billy always paid close attention. "Federation patrol ships on the outers of the system are calling for defensive formations to be taken within system space, V-26 vector. They've detected inbound unregistered vessels approaching the system at high speed, none of which are answering their long-range hailing frequencies. Civilian craft are all ordered to remain grounded."

Billy unfastened his harness, his wrist-comp beeping at him before he got up out of the co-pilot's seat. He brought up the connection on audio only. "William," old man Heph's gravelly voice rumbled over the connection. "Where are you right now? Are you at home?"

"No, I'm at the spaceport with Samus," he replied, exiting the Hoppy with Samus hot on his heels. "We were about to take a test flight for her to practice. I'm assuming something just popped up on your outer probes?"

"Not just something, William," the old man said, his voice distant, hollowed by terror. "Space Pirate vessels, seven cruisers, nine assault drones, and each of those cruisers easily hosts two, maybe three hundred fighters a piece! Their flight path pattern will bring them to this planet in two hours, perhaps three if the Federation patrols put up a strong fight!" Billy's mind went blank for a moment, processing what the old timer was telling him. He fought his way clear of his mental fog quickly and spoke.

"Heph, get your ship out of the barn and get over to my house," Billy said, leading Samus to his planetside shuttle and opening the hatch for her. Samus marched inside, strapped in, and set the autopilot while Billy closed the hatch. "Do it now. Aran out." He clicked off the comms on his wrist-comp and settled into his seat as the shuttle hovered away from the spaceport. When they were halfway home, he turned in his seat to face his daughter. "Samus, I need you to listen to me very carefully."

"I understand, sir," she replied.

"When we get home, we're going to pack some of your things, and some of Sandy's, okay? You girls are going to get on old Heph's ship after you've got what you need, and you're going to get off planet."

"And you, sir? What will you be doing," Samus asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

"My Hoppy can't take on cruisers, but it's more than powerful enough to stand ground against their assault ships," Billy said, setting his jaw tightly. He saw the beginnings of a protest forming in her eyes, hoped that his expression could stave it off. For once, he succeeded, and she mutely nodded. "As soon as we've got you packed up and going, I'm going to go do my part. I'll join you as soon as I can."

"Of course, sir," she said, though she didn't for a minute believe him. In the years she'd lived with her father, Samus had come to understand the kind of man he was. Billy Aran was a boisterous drinker, a loving guardian and mate, and a generous soul at heart. He was also fatally pragmatic when he needed to be, and self-sacrificing in extreme situations, which this definitely qualified as.

The way she saw it, her father was going to get himself killed in a pointless gesture to give his child and wife a better shot at survival.

Samus had a surprise or two for him on that score. As the shuttle landed out in front of the house, Billy stormed in ahead of her, giving Samus the chance to use her own wrist-comp to remotely connect to the Hoppy. She programmed in a set of control overrides, so that the moment she activated them, his ship would come after her, completely out of his control.

She had already lost her mother; she wasn't going to lose him too.

Beaker stood on the bridge of his cruiser, hands folded behind his back, his uniform stiff from being overly starched. He brushed one paw through his hair, staring at the gray furs that came away in his palm. Two streaks had begun forming along the angle of his temples, an undeniable sign of the stresses of his post.

He placed one hand on his command panel, opening the channel between bridge and fighter bays. "This is lieutenant-colonel Beaker. Launch stealth fighters in ten minutes. They are not to engage patrols unless detected and fired upon." He didn't wait for a reply; none would be forthcoming at this stage. His orders were carried out without question during missions like this.

The turaki outlaw felt Ridley's aura before the space dragon made his way through the towering archway onto the bridge. The air around him crackled with barely restrained violence and madness, his wings fluttering faintly as they shifted with his movements. Beaker turned on his heel to look up at the looming beast, whose eyes glistened darkly down at him.

"I'm going ahead, now," said Ridley, his thick, growling voice echoing around the bridge.

"If you do that, the Federation patrols will spot you. You can't fight them all on your own."

"I won't need to," Ridley said softly. "I have my own chameleon ability to hide myself until I'm on the planet." The space dragon shivered, then, as if by some magic, his reptilian flesh changed colors, blending in perfectly with his surroundings. He reappeared as normal again moments later. "I need not fear detection."

Beaker sighed, but nodded his acquiescence. "Very well, Ridley. You are cleared to fly. I'll inform the fighter bay." Beaker sent off a quick message as Ridley streaked through the cruiser's passageways, clearly eager to be at work. Once he was planetside, not even Federation assault ships could stand a chance against him; Beaker shuddered to think about the havoc he could cause on K-2L's surface.

He would see precisely what that havoc looked like soon enough.

Samus packed her bags calmly, methodically, listening to the half-whispered argument her parents were having down the hall. Her father was trying to convince Sandy that he would be just fine, that his skills as a fighter pilot were more than enough to handle a few Space Pirates before following Heph's transport ship. Sandy was returning fire by pointing out that he wasn't yet a Federation officer, and he didn't owe the local law any help against a raid of this magnitude.

Samus knew her father would be getting into no such fight, but she said nothing. Instead, she popped her rolling case closed and wheeled it down the hall to their bedroom doorway. "I'm ready," she declared. Her parents swung toward her, Sandy finishing packing her bag in a huff. "Is Heph here yet?"

"Not yet," Billy said, coming around the bed toward her. "Look, it's important that you remember what to do if you get grounded planetside," he said, leaning down and gently gripping her by the shoulders. "Tell me your game plan." Samus took a breath, blew out, nodded. She had memorized this catechism after only two tries a year earlier, when the Space Pirates' long silence had begun worrying Billy. She knew it well enough, but for some reason, thinking about its implications always seemed daunting.

"If patrols, fighting or damage to our vessel keeps us planetside, we are to gather all emergency supplies from the vessel in question and exit. We are then to return here and access the bunker through the crawl space under the west end of the house. The access code is seven-four-six-one. Plasma rifles and additional charge packs are within easy reach just inside the blast hatch, and approximately six months' worth of supplies are stocked. We wait out 48 hours, then use a mobile sweeper to survey the area for damages, dangers, or new supplies.

"After that has been completed, if we have no sign of critical danger in the vicinity, we split up and start making personal perimeter patrols, widening them with each passage."

"And when are you completely safe," Billy asked, keeping himself from smiling at his little girl's perfect retention. Seamus's affect remained flat.

"Never," she answered. Billy nodded, then led Samus out to the front of the house.

"Keep an eye out for Heph," he said. "I want to have a short talk with Sandy before you two take off." Samus kept her expression neutral as her father headed back inside, but there was a practical firestorm in her mind. That unknown, uncertain sense of doom had come upon her again, and Samus found herself sweeping the skies above frantically for some sign of whatever was causing this sensation.

Half a minute later, her eyes, ears, her entire mind locked onto a distant mid-air explosion, somewhere over the town near her home. The roar of an unimaginable beast tore the air close behind the 'whump' of a crashing shuttle, and Samus could make out the vague outline of some enormous, hideous bird of prey.

Heph's ship flew toward the Aran home only a few dozen yards ahead of the beast. She heard herself as if calling from the far end of a tunnel, muttering, "No, no, no!" When he was perhaps three-quarters of a mile distant, Heph's ship was struck from behind by a swirling ball of green fire, belched out of the creature's mouth. His ship sheared apart and slammed into the ground, shaking the soil under her feet.

Samus caught a clear look at the creature before spinning on her heel to sprint inside. It was a huge, foul-looking dragon covered in slimy purple scales, it's bat-like wings lending it a queer grace as it rampaged. Samus was in the house before the image of it could fully form in her mind, her thoughts a scramble of panic and terror.

"Shelter," she screamed as she tore past her father and Sandy, who stood confused at the doorway. The young Svestri girl wasn't thinking, just moving based on training, on orders given by her father. She pushed through the house to the back door, slipping down into the crawl space and opening the sliding blast curtain by entering the passcode. She slithered down through the opening, and stood waiting at the bottom for her parents to join her.

The concussion blast and searing heat the threw her down the bunker's short entrance hall told her that wasn't going to happen, and so much more. Dazed, she heard the ripple of wings and clatter of debris overhead before slipping into the darkness of unconsciousness.

Samus wasn't sure how long she'd been knocked out, but she knew it hadn't been very long. She could still smell smoke roiling down from above, the security shutter having been warped out of true by the impact the creature made on the home. She assumed it had lobbed one of those green fireballs at the house from the air, this obliterating her home and everything in it.

Including her parents.

She was once again an orphan, and this time, it was probably for good. She had no other family, as both her biological mother and father were single children. There would be no uncles or aunts to take her in. More important than that consideration, for now, was getting that blast shutter back up onto its track properly, to secure the bunker. As Samus carried herself back toward the entrance chute, she wiped away tears with the back of one hand, keeping her sobs choked down tight.

A careful examination revealed that the blast shutter's left track had warped, but only a small bit. If the roller could be forced down into the track just an inch or two beyond the damage, it could be shut. With a grunt, lifting and shoving, the Svestri girl summoned every bit of her genetically altered physical strength to force the roller down, the shutter latching into place.

Samus then went to the bunker's central chamber, a simple room similar to an assault ship's small bridge, save for the cot where a command chair would usually sit. She walked over to the control console against the wall opposite the cot and synced it with her wrist comp. With this done, she sat on the edge of the cot and brought up three holopad command panels over her lap, matching screens coming to life before her. Samus brought up a multi-window display on one of these, looking at the imagery within.

Billy had security cameras all over not only his own property, but at several key locations around the planet. He seldom checked on them, but they were all on constant feed for the emergency bunker. On each camera the story was pretty much the same- Space Pirates utterly decimating the local law enforcement officers and Federation troops who were unfortunate enough to come across them. There could be no doubt about how widespread the destruction was; every camera with even a distant view of the planet's larger towns and cities was full of fire, smoke and blaster bolts. However, she did see several civilian craft making their way off-planet, largely unmolested.

The space dragon appeared on one of the screens, and Samus, her breath suddenly catching in her throat, immediately deactivated the cameras trained on it. She couldn't handle seeing the creature which had singlehandedly slain everyone in her life whom she held truly dear to her. Had it been merely a man or a woman with a ship, she might have immediately tried to slip to the spaceport and grab the Hoppy for some proper revenge. As it stood now, with her father and stepmother having been destroyed by a terror from the depths of space, she could only hope to ride out the initial carnage and sneak off planet when either nobody was looking, or after these outlaws had taken what they wanted and left the planet to try to recover.

She spotted the creature on one of the camera feeds, a beast towering at approximately twenty feet in height, tearing grown men in half between his huge, scaled and clawed hands before proceeding to eat them. She'd never heard of such a thing being done, had never known that such life forms existed within the systems she'd lived in, but Samus could not deny the evidence before her. Watching it made her stomach turn, though, so she turned those cameras off and moved her attention to the outer perimeter of the spaceport. There didn't seem to be a great deal of activity in that area, but she could make out nearly a dozen fighter vessels belonging to the Space Pirates occupying several of the primary docking stations. There were only a few outlaws present, but they appeared to be guarding the ships there, armed and ready to open fire.

More curious to her than the rampaging of the dragon was the sight of several civilians being allowed to get in their ships at the spaceport and take off. A few waited as some of the outlaws stripped the weapons from their vessels, all of which struck her as highly unusual. Her father and old man Heph had spoken several dozen times about the Space Pirates, and they had never said anything positive about them as an organization. Yet she could plainly see them helping the people of K-2L evacuate in a swift and orderly fashion.

She suspected that if she took the opportunity, she could make her way to the spaceport and fly the Hoppy off-planet. Samus swept into the supply room, grabbing enough food and water to comfortably travel for about a week, long enough to get to a Federation outpost. When she was passing back into the main chamber, however, she happened to glance at the holoscreens showing views of the near-outer orbit of the planet.

The civilian ships were being blown apart by waiting assault vessels lurking in the planet's outer atmosphere.

Nobody was getting out alive.


	9. Chapter 9- Escape

White Claw cycled through the data and brought up the results screen in the central display, so that everyone on the bridge could read the results. The pearl-colored chozo shook his head even before his comrades had a chance to read the data, horrified at the results before him. "There is no mistake regarding this information. It has been compiled three times, and I assure you, there is no error." The other members of the crew on the bridge each came up and read the screen, slowly walking back to their stations, shaking their heads collectively. White Claw faced them in his captain's chair, gripping the arms hard enough to cause the ends to give out a groan.

"This is worse than we had even imagined," said Sun Streak, a gold-hued chozo wearing the modern armor of his race's warrior men and women. "There had been fifty thousand humanoid life forms on the planet at our last probe. How many Space Pirate vessels attacked?"

Another of their kin cleared his throat, a molting old bird with shaggy blue feathers, a chozo elder who had seen much and more in his long life. "Ridley was with them," he croaked, scowling. "I would not fear to wager that monstrosity owns nearly half of the body count on K-2L. The space dragons should have been exterminated, one and all," he grumbled.

"Regardless of the numbers that _were _here during the assault, they're entirely gone now," said White Claw. "Whatever they came for, they got it. Our task is to relieve the suffering of those who have managed to survive. There are seventeen humanoids stranded throughout the surface below us. They may not know if they are safe, who we are, and they may react," he said, eyes narrowing as he searched for the right word. "Poorly. The signatures tell us the initial assault was four days ago, and if these people weren't near supplies, they could be in dire straits."

Sun Streak thumped his breastplate and grunted. "I will divide the search crew into parties, and we will retrieve the refugees." White Claw swiveled back around in his commander's seat to look down at the planet through the main viewscreen. He wondered if any of the refugees they picked up would be able to carry on with their lives with any measure of peace.

He would find out for certain soon enough.

Samus opened up her wrist comp's archive, trying to find a match for the vessels the atmospheric sensors were showing her approaching the planet. She cycled through nearly forty entries before finally arriving on something in the ball park.

"Chozo," she mumbled to herself, scanning the available information on the bird-like humanoids. She remembered being informed by her father, after much prodding, that part of the genetic augmentation code that had gone into her mother, and thus into her, was from their species. She had been experimented upon after being born as well, but though her mother had informed her of this prior to her demise, she hadn't known the details of what was further done to her daughter's genetic makeup.

If Billy had known, he hadn't shared that extra information before being slaughtered by the space dragon.

Taking the prudent course of observation before action, Samus cycled through the hidden cameras scattered about the surface. She wanted to see what these chozo were doing on K-2L before letting her presence be known to them.

She didn't have to wait long, as it turned out. She watched on the screens as dozens of the bird-men in full combat space armor guided people from debris-strewn ruins, out of bolt holes, and take them calmly, slowly to waiting drop ships. Most of her fellow refugees appeared too deep in traumatic shock to process what was going on, precisely. They were being saved, and they only seemed dimly aware of it.

Samus was about to fetch some supplies to head up to the surface with when a rapid flashing light on one of the display screens grabbed her attention. She enlarged the screen, grinning as she saw a golden feathered warrior in heavy space armor tromp toward her shelter through what used to be her home. Her expression fell, though, as the chozo paused, kneeling down to haul aside some of the wreckage.

What remained of her father and stepmother lay beneath.

Sun Streak heard the human screaming and sobbing even before rising from beside the twisted, burned corpses of two others of its kin. The sound of those cries came to him as both horrified and furious. Whoever he heard may have come mentally unhinged during their time of survival.

"Sir," one of his subordinates said softly, gaining his attention. He saw the other chozo pointing off and up to one side, where, hovering close by, Sun Streak could just make out the shimmer of a cloaked, mobile surveillance camera. The bigger chozo nodded at his men, and they spread out.

One of his men whistled sharply, and the chozo gathered around a blast shutter in the ground, its handle and rollers warped by whatever violent blast had struck it. Sun Streak flexed his claws, which activated small generators in the gauntlets he wore. His arms vibrating with technologically enhanced strength, he tore down into the blast door, wrenching it off of its tracks with one violent heave.

The girl revealed under the shutter had a modest blaster pistol in her left hand, held down against her leg. Sun Streak tossed the bent metal aside and gave her a quick look, his eyes fixing on hers. He'd been close to dismissing the girl's look for more of the same flat-out shock and trauma that most of the others seemed to have exhibited in their recoveries. Yet something felt different, even in that small moment. The girl clarified that notion moments later.

Samus holstered the blaster at the small of her back and tossed one of the smaller chozo a heavy duffel bag. She planted her hands on her hips, cocked her head to one side, giving Sun Streak a hard glare. She cleared her throat and said, "You left yourself wide open to attack from who or whatever happened to be down here."

The gathered chozos stood silent, unmoving, until Sun Streak, a warrior not precisely known for his sense of humor, suddenly erupted in belly laughter. The sound was strangely guttural, yet lively, and the big man held one hand to his chest as he wound back down from his fit. He crouched down, swinging his armored legs over the edge of the ramp down into the shelter, offering one hand to the girl.

"Come, brave little one," he said, hauling Samus up out of the ground. When he stood up, she threw her arms around his leg, a torrent of every previously unreleased tear and sob pouring out of her. Svestri or no, she was a twelve-year-old child, one whose father, only a few years earlier, had finally come into her life. Now he was dead, reduced to a burned and melted pile of bones and wet body armor.

She had no one, but all was not yet lost. The enormity of the assault on K-2L had robbed her of her family and her home, but not of her life. It was a small favor, but for the time being, she could not control her outward expression of gratitude for at least that much. The chozos, though warriors around her, understood.

When she came awake, Samus felt a small surge of panic. The room around her was crafted entirely of a deep blue metal, including the sleeping pod she sat up on. The chozo, when traveling abroad, always sought to minimize the amount of extra materials on board their vessels. One method was crafting beds from the floors of private bunk chambers themselves, layering padding and blankets into the body-shaped contours.

Her room was a communal chamber, shared with five other children between the ages of seven and thirteen. This too was a holdover from their bird-man saviors, a cultural practice they seemed to take for granted. The refugees, mostly human, had been divided into communal rooms based entirely on their ages. Some families had objected to this at first, but relented swiftly when Sun Streak told them that they should comply until the ship returned home.

_This isn't my room, _she thought, peering around at the other sleeping children on their pods. _That's right. We're on the Swift Claw._ She groaned quietly, a throb taking up dull residence behind her left eye. Samus climbed up out of her sleeping pod and moved with silent strides over to the door and out into the corridor.

The chozos had no guard posted to the chamber she'd heard them refer to as 'the mid-year children's room', a fact she would have normally taken silent umbrage to. It seemed the bird-men saw no threat in the room, and though Samus had little in the way of ego, she knew enough to consider herself a valid threat, particularly since they hadn't confiscated her blaster pistol.

She meandered slowly up the corridor, listening to the soft, constant hum of the ship around her. The _Swift Claw _was a Type B Cruiser class vessel, large enough to house a crew of three thousand men and fifty-three fighter ships in its launch bays. Samus didn't know much else about the chozos' space ship engineering methods, except that even their larger ships were designed more for maneuverability than brute strength.

She paused as she came to an open archway on the left side of the corridor, peering inside. The room beyond the arch was rounded all about, devoid of any furnishings save for a wooden rack of what appeared to be ancient-styled weapons, spears and swords and axes. Sitting with their legs folded under then were four chozo in plain white cotton tunics, their heads lowered, eyes closed. Samus could see their beaks moving ever so slightly as she stepped closer to the arch, each man engaged in some form of meditation.

One of the bird-men's head snapped up suddenly, his brilliant purple eyes locking on hers with primal intensity. Samus flinched, but she otherwise held her ground as the chozo slowly smiled at her. The man waves one hand at her in beckoning, and rather than resist, she walked into the room. "Brothers, we have a guest," he said in a smooth, calm voice. The other three chozos looked up from their ruminations at her, their own expressions flat. "What is your name, young one?"

"Samus. Samus Aran. My father was William Aran," she added, fighting back tears once more. She'd managed to stave off another fit of crying when she first laid down to sleep earlier, and she still found it difficult, the wound still raw.

"I am called Forak," said the chozo who had invited her in. "With me are my closest friends, Torus, Aurik, and Glennon. We were about to engage in some sparring. Would you care to watch?" Samus nodded, and the four bird-men rose in one harmonious motion. Forak took Samus by the hand gently, walking her over to the weapons racks. "These are the preferred weapons of our trade. You see, we are members of the order known as 'breakers'. We engage our foes in melee combat, forgoing projectile weaponry."

"Isn't that dangerous," Samus asked, looking up at the chozo. "Most people use blasters or firearms of some sort these days."

"It is as you say," Forak said with a nod. "But we view the risk of harm to innocents due to errant aim to be a greater danger than that posed to our own safety. A warrior knows he may come to harm in battle. He or she must do all in their power to avoid risking the well being of those not involved."

"That's very, noble," Samus said, trying out the word for the first time aloud. She quirked one eyebrow at Forak. "Is that the right word?" The chozo chuckled and patted her shoulder.

"I do believe so, yes. Come now, select a weapon you'd like to see demonstrated. I'll be defending first, so choose what you'd like to see in that light." Samus carefully looked over the weapons, finally deciding on a long-handled double-headed axe. "Ah, the pole-axe. An incredibly versatile weapon. An excellent choice, child," he said, taking up the weapon.

Forak turned away from her and spun the pole-axe about, clearly comfortable and familiar with it. His comrades had all selected their own weapons as well; Toris held a broadsword, Aurik a trident, and Glennon had a long metal chain wound about his right arm with two feet dangling down to a rounded ball. Samus could now see that the weapons were all padded or blunted, keeping them non-lethal for training purposes.

Beginning with Toris, the three attacking chozos came at Forak one at a time, stabbing, thrusting and swinging, each attack deflected or dodged nimbly. Samus focused on his footwork primarily, one of her father's many lessons replaying in her mind. _Watch the foot movements, and learn those first, _he had said. _Everything else needs that foundation first._

The drawback to this was in the confusion of footwork that picked up when all three attacking chozos came at Forak as a swarm. His movements became swifter, lighter, his hips and knees pivoting and bending in brief flashes that she almost missed. Narrowing her attention on just Forak, she absorbed quickly how the longer weapons, like the pole-axe and spear, required wider stances and more linear sweeps and steps to wield efficiently in combat.

The fighting itself was ferocious, but measured, the attackers landing only a few blows while Forak landed at least half of his counter-strikes. The first round of the melee was full of motion, but only lasted a couple of minutes. When it was over, the four men rotated weapons and began again, Forak now wielding the broadsword. His skill level with the blade was far more impressive, the defending chozo blocking every incoming blow save for one from the ball and chain now wielded by Toris.

The Svestri girl remained to watch two more rounds of sparring before thanking Forak for the opportunity to observe. He told her she was always welcome to watch, and that she might some day be invited to participate.

When she managed to fall back to sleep, her dreams were filled with the rush of steel.

A series of rapid beeps woke him from a pleasantly deep sleep, earning the source a sour frown as his eyes cracked open. Beaker wiggled his nose, forced a sneeze, and reached over to press the green button on his bedside intercom. "What is it," he grumbled, remaining laid out on the bed.

"Sergeant Kiwik, sir," a low, gruff voice replied. "We've just received word that several chozo cruisers were at K-2L approximately thirty hours ago, and they are now leaving that sector of space."

"Do we have a trajectory estimate," Beaker asked, letting sleep start to creep back towards taking over.

"We don't, sir. My apologies. I simply thought it would be best to keep you informed."

"And so I am informed, thank you sergeant," Beaker said, cutting the connection before unplugging the intercom. He rolled back over and returned to the peace he found only in dreams these days, escaping from his personal reality down the rabbit hole. In his dreams, he could easily figure out where Ridley was at any given time, unlike in his waking life. In dreams, he could silence Mother Brain's mental speech, and the scraping sensation that accompanied it.

In his dreams, he could opt to walk away from the responsibility of being in the uppermost echelon of command of the organization. Only a few years earlier, he'd just been a unit commander, stuck on a galactic backwater that turned out to be rich in certain rare materials. Now the turaki wielded influence and command over a few thousand men. Not that such command was helping much; there were losses, noticeable ones, at least every few days.

Nodding back into la la land, Beaker let all of those concerns wash away temporarily. He wasn't worried about ignoring a problem until later; after all, the problem would still be there when he got back.

It had been four days since the refugees were picked up by the chozos, and Samus had trained with Forak and his comrades just twice. In those sessions, she realized how superior they were to humans in melee combat. She managed to land perhaps four total blows, while taking enough punishment to have been killed dozens of times over if the weapons hadn't been padded.

When the ship's captain announced their approach to the chozos home planet, Samus got changed into the white tunics of training and headed for the sparring chamber. Forak was there once again, but his usual cadre of training partners were absent. Samus cleared her throat, grinning at the chozo as he cracked one eye open, looking up at her from his seat on the floor.

"Young Samus," he said, standing up. "Come for one last session before we land?" She nodded, walking over to the weapons rack. "And what will be your weapon of choice today? You'll only have to face me, so select the weapon you feel most skilled with." With that in mind, Samus grabbed a simple metal rod wrapped in thin padding, the equivalent of a baton like the ones her father had taught her to wield.

"Something tells me this isn't going to go much different than the last two times," she said as Forak took up the pole-axe once again.

"I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that," said the bird-man, taking up a prepared stance with his weapon. He bowed his head to Samus, a gesture she returned, then came at her with a lunge, the rounded spike atop the axe head thrusting at her. She side-stepped the attack and whipped her baton around in a circle, rebounding off of the contact with the pole-axe and swinging her baton around in an overhead blow.

She managed to land a glancing blow on Forak. Surprised by her own speed and luck, Samus hesitated for just an instant. In that minuscule gap, Forak wheeled and swung at Samus's legs. She managed to jump over the attack, but while in the air, the chozo spun with his own momentum and heel kicked her, vaulting her back through the air.

Samus landed hard on her back, but she heard Forak approaching quick. She rolled up into a crouch, then tucked her head down and somersaulted back at the chozo, extending her right leg with the heel down. The move resulted in a hard axe kick to his solar plexus, a maneuver she had tried once before when three opponents had been after her. Then, it had failed spectacularly. Here, it bought her a few critical seconds to gather herself.

Forak nodded at her. "This is much better, Samus Aran. Now, let us see something new." Samus could not have said what was worse about the next thirty seconds of her life, the pain from the multiple blows she took, or the humiliation of only being able to avoid the head strikes. When his flurry was over, Forak stood over a groaning Samus, her weapon dropped aside, arms covering her bruised ribs.

Forak tossed his pole-axe aside and sat down by Samus, lifting her up so that her head was cradled in his lap. "That was awful," she managed between lungfuls of air.

"That was my greatest combination with the two-handed weapons of that sort," Forak said, stroking her hair. "That I didn't hit you with every strike within it speaks volumes of your skill, young one."

"But I only landed a few hits," she croaked.

"Yes," he replied softly. "Against a seventy year veteran of hundreds of battles. Samus Aran, you landed several strikes on me, and with a weapon with a significant reach disadvantage to mine. When you trained against myself and my comrades, how many times did we strike you?"

"Dozens, at least," she said, her body relaxing as Forak continued stroking her hair.

"Only dozens, of hundreds of total attacks from four breakers. Do you understand now why we train the way we do? How that training will benefit you if you chose to stay with us?" Samus strained to sit up, facing the chozo in the same cross-legged fashion as he. "Commander Sun Streak spoke to us of you the day we retrieved your people from K-2L. It was not coincidence that we positioned your group so close to this training room, you see."

"It was arranged," Samus said slowly. "Why?"

"All of your kin from the planet were scanned by the ship's onboard sensors when you came on, and our chief science officers analyzed all incoming data. We discovered that you are one of the few Svestri children of your age in the known Federation spaces. Many such children have chozo genetic code embedded within them. It was the commander's recommendation that we see if you have potential, and if so, that we offer you a new home, a new life. The only question that now faces you, young Samus Aran, is this; will you accept this new course through life?"

The Svestri girl looked down at her legs, feeling every developing bruise, every inch of her mental pain from losing the life she'd just begun to enjoy. She set her jaw, looked Forak in the eyes, and silently nodded. "Very well, then," he said, standing up putting the weapons back on the rack. "Go and fetch your bag, Samus Aran. When we land, you will be coming with me."


	10. Chapter 10- The Blade is Sharpened

Samus brought her arms up in a crossing guard, rocking backward with the impact of the incoming blow. Flashing her hands out, she grabbed onto her attacker's ankle and torqued her arms, spinning the chozo through the air to the floor. She kept well back when he fell, staying safe from his floor sweep when he got back up.

"You're learning quickly," said commander Sun Streak, taking a ready stance. "Now, come at me," he said. Samus nodded, running toward one side of the grassy field, dive rolling into a patch of high grass along the perimeter. She remained low, listening intently for the large chozo's movements. "I instructed you to come at me, Samus Aran, not to hide," he called after her.

The Svestri girl pulled a small silver tube from her belt, planting it in the soil at an angle aimed at Sun Streak. She turned a dial along the tube, pressed a thin green button, and rushed forth from the brush. Sun Streak was only twenty feet away now, having cautiously approached her position while she was in her cover.

Sharply angling away, Samus skidded to a halt and faced the commander. "Head's up," she said. There came a low whine from the brush, and Sun Streak looked away from her for just a moment. As soon as he looked, the device emitted a searing beam of light right at his face. The chozo grunted, flailing backward, temporarily blinded. As he back pedaled, Samus leaped up and leveled a heel kick, her foot snapping hard against the side of his head.

The attack knocked him down, but as Samus landed in a crouch, his left hand reached out, finding purchase on her long hair before she could dart away. He yanked her close, wrapping his huge arm around her throat and squeezing until she tapped the ground for release. He let her go with a grunt and rolled over, finally pushing himself up to a seated position.

"One year," he rumbled as she took a kneeling posture facing him. "It only took you one year to finally knock me down." Samus began to smile, but suppressed the urge when she saw him scowling. "I don't appreciate how you did it, though. You used deception and trickery to accomplish your aims. Can you justify this, Samus Aran?"

The Svestri girl looked off into the high brush, where the flasher device was still firing intermittent bursts of blinding laser light. She knew full well that given another few months of training, she would be able to fell Sun Streak in singular combat. By then, the latest growth spurt she was going through would either slow down or finish up, and she could adjust to her new frame.

Samus took in a long, deep breath, closed her eyes, then let out her air and gave the commander a cool, measured look. "My father taught me that a great soldier always prepares for the worst. If he or she knows anything about an upcoming confrontation, he or she uses that information to create advantages where none would otherwise exist."

"I am not your father," Sun Streak replied.

"No, you're not. You are also a warrior, not a soldier," Samus said. "My father wasn't a soldier either, but he was a bounty hunter, and every bounty hunter worth anything has a solid foundation as a soldier." The commander's scowl softened, and he finally nodded at her with something approaching appreciation.

"Your father was a wise man indeed, Samus Aran," the huge chozo said. "Tell me why you did as you did." Samus tried to explain her rationale to Sun Streak, halting awkwardly as she attempted to convey the difficulty of adjusting her movements to her changing body. When she was finished, the commander let out a single barking laugh. "I understand," he said at last. "There is no shame in this. The greatest warriors adapt as they must to new truths in battle."

"Sir," Samus began, raising one eyebrow at the chozo. "I didn't say warrior. I said soldier. I've never heard the word 'soldier' used since arriving here." Sun Streak closed his eyes and lowered his head slightly. "Why is that?" The burly chozo made a deep noise low in his throat, then looked Samus in the eyes.

"The word is not precisely foreign to our people, Samus, but there is little use for it among the chozo. In our view, a soldier is a type of warrior, one who enforces the will of a government or a council of elders. The soldier, to my people, does not serve all persons of his kin, but rather, he serves the laws, fighting for the enforcement of rules and orders."

"How is that different from a warrior," Samus asked in reply.

"A warrior battles on behalf of himself and his tribe, without concern for things like nations or governments. For a soldier, a battle takes place in phases; for a warrior, the battle simply is, for better or worse. Warriors do not withhold anything in combat, whereas soldiers tend to fight in a conservative style."

Samus nodded to herself and thanked Sun Streak for training with her once again. Xiao-Rin, the planet the chozos had brought her and the other refugees to a little over a year earlier, was similar in many ways to K-2L in terms of geography and topography. A few key differences could not be ignored, however, even as she walked away through the high grass.

For starters, Samus constantly kept an eye out in the tall grass for creatures called gelikas, chubby squirrel-like rodents that served as a primary source of protein for the bird-men and their permanent human guests. Secondly, she felt a constant tug downward when she had first arrived, but seemed to have adapted fairly quickly to it. This, she was informed by one of the tutors who instructed younglings, was due to a gravitational field that was more potent than that on planets like K-2L.

The final major difference that she had learned to contend with was the way that the chozos' architecture tended to blend right into the surrounding nature. She sometimes walked right past entire buildings when out leisure hiking before realizing that, for example, a rolling hill she walked on had actually been covering a library hall.

She was about three hundred yards away from a thick wooded area in which her village was half-hidden when she realized that the commander wasn't following her. Samus looked back over her shoulder and saw him bowed forward, his forehead pressed against the ground. Even warriors such as he among the chozo were deeply spiritual folk, an aspect of the chozo as a race that the Svestri girl didn't quite understand. For all of their scientific aptitude and genius, the bird-men held an enormous capacity for philosophical pseudo-religious thinking.

She had never joined them in their meditations of this sort, not even the host family with whom she lived. Samus maintained a separate room in their humble stone house, hers being the only door in the entire village with a lock on it. After a full year living and training with them, she still maintained her unique identity as a human who did not simply rely on trust. Combined with her green hair (no dye being readily available), she stuck out like a sore thumb. Seeing Sun Streak prostrate himself under the glow of the sun merely caused these thoughts to swirl in her mind once more.

_Still, it could be worse, _she thought. _At least I'm still alive._

"Lieutenant colonel, sir," said the burly man in the doorway of Beaker's office, a fine specimen bearing the twin stripes of a corporal in the Space Pirates organization. The turaki looked up from his holo screen on his desk and quirked an eyebrow at the human.

"Yes, corporal? Something to report?"

"Sir, Ridley's been spotted on the surface," said the trooper, his uniform barely moving as he brought his arm down out of a salute. "He's asking for you." Beaker let out a long sigh, grunting as he rose from his wingback chair. Mother Brain had granted him a number of luxuries over the course of the last few months, and one of them was the plush seat in his office deep within the compound. Once settled in, he hated having to leave its comfort.

"Has anyone been fool enough to approach him," the turaki asked, whiskers twitching.

"No, sir. We all know better," said the corporal, cringing. "Nobody has gone closer than shouting distance, especially since his latest mutation." The corporal was referring to a new aspect of Ridley's tail, which had at some point become barbed and extendable. His effective killing range aside from his breath weapon had expanded with this development, a fact demonstrated on a few of his fellow Space Pirates.

Beaker shooed the corporal from his office, then exited himself, locking the door behind him and arming a lethal trap device with a small trigger remote kept in his uniform's coat pocket. Next, he took from another pocket a pair of earrings, which he promptly slipped into place along his left earlobe. The corporal gave him a curious glance, but offered no comment. _Good boy, _Beaker thought. _Ask no questions, you'll live longer that way._

The turaki stalked down several towering corridors in the compound, careful to keep an eye on the wandering metroids floating about. While Mother Brain had a solid command of most of the creatures, some few demonstrated moments of independence, going after Space Pirates aggressively. The brain-like overlord of the organization couldn't be blamed, really; she was simply stretched too thin.

Beaker had noticed that and taken advantage of his opportunities when they arose.

After a few more turns, he came to a concealed lift in the rock walls. Pressing on a special rock set in the wall, he opened a narrow lift platform and began his ascent to the surface. It didn't feel very fast, but he knew that this was due to the placement of several kinetic dampeners on the lift's underside. Only a handful of officers knew about the lift, which had been one of Beaker's pet projects. He thought back on how he had justified its construction to Mother Brain, smiling just a little wider each time he thought about getting one over on his overseer.

When the lift got to the top of its shaft, a flat section of wall slid aside, revealing a cozy little cavern, one wall hosting a wide but short tunnel which led directly to the planet's surface. From where he stood as he stepped off of the platform, he could just make out Ridley in the distance.

Moving that way, the turaki paused in the tunnel, his furry hand once more reaching out to touch a hidden panel. A section of the wall opened just a crack, enough for him to peek inside for a reassuring glance. Beyond the false wall was a two-person transport shuttle, a Guppy-class vessel devoid of offensive weapons systems of any sort, but loaded with a stunning array of defenses. Alongside the shuttle, near its side entry hatch, were several cases of ration packets and a water condenser unit, ready for installation.

He had trusted nobody with the details of his plan, but he suspected that the space dragon, as bizarre and foreign as his behavior had become, might have developed more than physical tricks. The earrings protected Beaker from psionic probing, but Ridley had other ways of finding things out. What those were, nobody seemed to know, the turaki included.

He let the panel slide shut once more and headed outside, taking in the soft sounds of the wind and rolling scree along the ground. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, the twin streaks of gray along his temples, and the way his oversized uniform coat hung on him, Beaker could hardly be looked upon to anyone as a threat. Yet he still possessed more than enough skill and tenacious ruthlessness to be formidable.

Perhaps it was this capability that Ridley respected for so many years. Where others tended to grow soft with age, Beaker was becoming more and more aware of how expendable he was, and as such, he dealt with problem personnel in no uncertain terms.

_Well, except for this problem,_ he thought, staring in awe as Ridley's freshly extended, segmented tail wavered back and forth through the air. The space dragon took a slow look over his shoulder, meeting eyes with Beaker for what felt like an eternity. In truth they shared only a few seconds of staring, after which Ridley returned his attention to the skies above. The turaki lieutenant colonel slowly approached, making sure his movements were obvious, overt. Despite having already been acknowledged by Ridley, he knew the beast might still react to sudden movements.

"It's been a while," Beaker said as he came within earshot."

"Six months," Ridley replied, his voice less gravelly than usual, almost smooth. "And you were the last person I shared genuine words with." Ridley looked down at Beaker as the smaller man came up beside him, staring off over the dark blue plains. "Mother Brain hardly counts as conversation, after all."

"Too true," said Beaker. He spotted something winged off in the distance swoop up out of a natural vent in the surface. It looked, at a distance, a little like Ridley. "What was that?"

"I'm not entirely sure what they are," the space dragon admitted. "But they aren't the only odd organisms to come crawling about around the compound. The chozo defense systems haven't been working properly, and many of the creatures have been springing up throughout the base. They leave me alone," he said, joining Beaker in looking out over the plains. "But the humans and other turaki among us have been getting attacked. Surely you've noticed unexplained absences and fatalities?"

"I haven't been getting all of the reports I should," Beaker said. "The last three months have been nothing but prep on The Mastermind, as well. Mother Brain is placing major Vuclech in command of the ship to go to Dasose IV on some sort of raid. Nobody will give me details." Ridley sighed and nodded.

"Nor have I heard more about that," said the space dragon. "Mother Brain has been keeping me away since my last evolution. I developed a defense against her probing." Beaker snorted, grinning and shaking his head.

"Very fortunate for you," the turaki commented. "I found my own protection, thankfully."

"The gerada stone earrings," Ridley replied. "I was quite impressed when I saw you wearing them the first time. Where did you find the material?"

"One of the geological reports shortly after our arrival pinged a small vein of it a mile or so from the main lift entrance," said Beaker. "I only remembered the report because Mother Brain kept asking me if anyone had gone out there."

"You think she knew?"

"Undoubtedly. If anything poses a threat to her, she likely has made herself aware of it. Ridley," Beaker said, taking a deep breath. "You usually go into a dormant phase after such large mutation cycles. Are you about to do so again?"

"Yes," the hulking space dragon said, bowing his head slightly. He turned his eyes toward the turaki, and Beaker saw there something he'd thought Ridley incapable of- sorrow. "I likely won't see you again, my friend. Even if I do, you know how I am after such slumber." Beaker nodded, thinking back on the devastation Ridley had committed after his last hibernation period. _An entire Federation battalion, gone, _he thought.

"Yes, I know," Beaker said aloud. "We just sort of aim you like a gun and let fly. You're a savage for those first few months." Beaker used his wrist comp to quickly cycle through some data files, read through a few interesting paragraphs, and pushed his sleeve back over the device. "I wasn't aware of the time correlation."

"The longer I slumber, the more aggressive I am upon waking, yes," said Ridley. "The longest I've slept for was twelve standard years. This was long ago, before you joined the organization. Anyhow, I had been aboard a cruiser, the name of which escapes me right now, cooped up in a cabin in the center of the ship. It had been taken out of service for repairs three times while I slept away inside. When I finally came awake, the ship was populated by people I didn't know, had never seen. So, one by one, sometimes by twos and threes, I slaughtered every last one of them, then spat fireballs in every direction until the ship came apart around me."

Beaker didn't respond immediately to this, thinking back on the stories he'd heard others tell over the years. "It was 'Whistler's Luck'," he said at last. "Two thousand men on board when you destroyed it. At the time, it was a heavy blow to the organization, so we killed you, put you in death stasis for a year. Then, I asked for your revival. I was fascinated by your regenerative powers."

"I was killed again three years later," Ridley said with a snort. "William Aran, a bounty hunter of all things. I suppose life is cyclical, though. He's listed as one of the casualties from K-2L. I hope he was one of mine." Beaker turned himself toward the entrance back down into the compound, putting one hand out against the space dragon's leg.

"You know," Beaker said, not leaving room for it to be a question.

"I do," Ridley replied. "Just make sure you get away clean. If Mother Brain finds out and you're still close, she'll send fighters after you." Beaker nodded and started away. When he got to the cavern entrance, he turned his head, and have Ridley one last wave farewell. Monster he might be, but the space dragon had been his very last friend in the 'verse.

He would miss having someone to talk to.

Samus ran through the corridors as fast as she could, the armor suit restricting her movements severely. She had managed to use the rifle her trainers gave her to maximum effect, stunning and downing four of her enemies at range, and using the stun baton to quietly take out three more. There were fifteen total enemy targets in the training course, and one capture target located somewhere in the facility. She could have easily tried to sneak past most of her trainers by removing the armor and relying on stealth, but she wanted to prove that she could endure the more gruelling method of fighting her way through.

At sixteen, she'd mastered most of the fighting styles of the chozo peoples. With her seventeenth birthday coming up soon, she had informed commander Sun Streak that she intended to register herself with the Galactic Federation as a Class C bounty hunter. The burly chozo, who had begun to decline physically in the five years of her living and training with his people, had given her his blessing upon her announcement, but would only allow her to leave the planet to undergo the registration if she agreed to first complete one final training challenge, and to secondly take him with her as a guardian to the nearest Federation station.

Samus's physical abilities had grown exponentially with each passing year since her arrival on planet, and her technical knowledge and skills had grown to be on par with the greatest engineers of the chozo. None of the elders of the clan aside from the commander supported her career choice. Gray Voice, one of the most revered elders of all of the clan, had spoken vehemently against allowing her to pursue such a career path, but she would hear none of it. She had explained to him that she felt compelled to honor her father's memory, and he had backed down. The bird-men, for all of their advanced technological and scientific skills and knowledge, still held to a brand of spiritualism that prized such values in its kin. As such, he agreed with the commander.

Stopping herself shy of a corner in the corridor, Samus slid down onto the floor and inched toward the intersection, drawing a small mirror from one of her armor suit's gear pouches. Holding it out on the end of a thin gripping tool, she peeked around the corner, spotting two more enemy guards, their backs to her. Her armor hadn't been struck by any attacks as yet, and had been rated to take five overall hits before she would be failed by the commander. If she could take out these two men quickly, she could probably bull her way through the remainder of the test opponents and complete this final exercise.

_But that would just be lazy,_ she thought to herself as she grabbed a nearby pebble off of the floor and tucked the mirror away. Samus let the rifle hang down to her side and took out her stun baton, then lightly tossed the pebble back down the corridor she had just come down, letting it bounce and echo. She listened intently as boots scraped, indicating a shift of posture in her targets. Next came the light jogging rhythm of their footfalls as they approached the corner-

And in a flurry of swings and weaving footwork, she downed the two sentries, caught off-guard by her presence so close around the corner. The second chozo had just been bringing his own test rifle up when she struck him in the head three times in rapid succession, dropping him to the ground. Samus took a small blue rag from this second guard's belt, using it to quickly wipe the sweat from her brow. She tried to user her gauntleted fingers to move a stray lock of green hair from her face, but only succeeded in spreading the strands out, nearly blocking her right eye entirely.

"Well shit," she grumbled, tugging the armored gloves off and adjusting her hair. She then knelt down over her stunned foes, rifling through their gear pouches for anything that she might make use of. In one of the first guard's pouches she came across a small orange device, pentagonal in shape and small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. She set it on the floor, then opened up the hatch panel over her wrist comp, scanning the device and running an analysis. She read through the resulting info screen quickly, grinning to herself like a fiend. "Very nice," she muttered, scooping up the device and adhering it to its owner's chest. She then hefted the stunned man up over her shoulder with a grunt, snorting to adjust to the stench of his sweat.

She had a surprise in store for whoever she came across next.

Marcher North had arranged his final wave of guards precisely as commander Sun Streak had recommended, six heavily armed soldiers standing in a ring around the center of a large, darkened chamber. They had positioned themselves such that none would be in a line of fire until Samus stood directly in the entryway, and by the time she was there to take a shot at them, the others would be ready for her to come the rest of the way in, opening herself to a crossfire that would easily end her test in a failure rating. Marcher enjoyed Samus Aran well enough, even considered her a friend, but the commander's will was not to be bucked. He would follow his orders, and try his best to fail the Svestri girl.

He heard movement coming from the shadowy tunnel leading to the final chamber, and brought his weapon up into firing position, bending his knees slightly and taking aim. The others around the room mirrored his movements, the air redolent with tension as they waited. There came a resounding set of thudding steps, followed by a grunt that was half a roar. Marcher raised his weapon to firing position, and as soon as the figure came hurtling through the tunnel entrance into their midst, he and his comrades opened fire. The orange pulses of stun energy slammed into the bulky, armored figure, following it all the way down to the floor where it landed in a crumpled pile. Marcher waved his hand overhead to call a cease fire, slowly approaching the still figure.

"You have my apologies, Samus Aran," he said, his voice light and lilting. He and the others approached the crumpled figure, but Marcher stopped as soon as he was finally able to see the head of the figure in the armor. "Get, b-" he managed before the stunner grenade, strapped to the paralyzed figure's breast plate, discharged, throwing out a concentric ring of orange force that knocked the chozos to the ground. Marcher groaned, his body going stiff inside his medium weight armor. A large, bulky figure came into view looming over him, rifle in hands, and knelt down beside him. Samus grinned down at him, an impish gleam in her bright eyes.

"And you have mine, Marcher," she whispered. "There's still one guard unaccounted for, by my count of your people here. I assume he or she will be in that last room," she said, pointing off to the far end of the room from where she'd entered at a solid security blast door. "Given your typical methodology, you instructed this guard to disguise himself as my capture target, and to hide the capture target themselves somewhere within the room. So, I'm going to go in there, stun the capture target, and disarm them. At that point, this exercise will be over, and I'll have yet another victory to hold over your head." Marcher would have scoffed or snickered playfully, but his entire body had gone stiff from the training stunner. Samus rose slowly and stalked out of his field of vision, towards the final room.

Marcher lay in the dim chamber, utterly still, for another five or six minutes, when an ear-splitting klaxon alarm droned out three long peals, signaling the end of the test. _Three beats,_ he thought, grinning finally as the signal undid the stun effects of the training weaponry throughout the facility. _She passed._ As he gained his feet, Samus Aran came walking out of the final chamber with her capture target handcuffed, the slender chozo struggling against his shackles. "You can let me go now, Samus," he whined.

"I don't know, I kind of like this look on you, Dell," she replied, shooting Marcher a cocked eyebrow. "What do you think, Marcher? Do I let him go?"

"I say aye, Samus Aran," Marcher replied, undoing the securing clasps on his training armor and letting it drop to the floor around him. "You've embarrassed us all well enough for one lifetime." Samus undid the shackles and gave Dell a light shove away, then began undoing her own training armor, revealing a dark blue jumpsuit beneath. "What's that," Marcher asked, pointing at her. Samus planted one hand on her hip, accentuating the way the suit hugged her body. It left little to the imagination regarding her curvature.

"It's called a Zero Suit," she replied, joining Marcher as he headed toward a partially hidden exit corridor out of the training facility. "Gray Voice had it made for me. It provides a short-radius atmosphere like a space suit, and repels damping field energy, as well as offering a mild degree of physical protection. It's nothing like a full combat suit, though, so it's more of a supplemental or defense of last resort. Do you like it?" Marcher gave her a once-over, humming, and nodded, facing forward as they came to a curved section of the exit tunnel.

"It seems a wise addition to your considerable arsenal," he replied. "Samus, is the commander really going to accompany you to Tau 3 station, to register as a bounty hunter for the Federation?"

"He has said as much," she replied, her boisterous, positive vibe decreasing as she walked. "But I'm not so sure he should. His health is less than ideal for any sort of extended trip, and the flight will take at least two months. I might be better off going on my own." Marcher put one hand on her shoulder and paused, halting their progress out of the facility.

"I will go with you instead," Marcher said. "But you must be the one to suggest this change of plans to the commander. He will take it poorly if it comes from a novice such as myself." Samus gently laid one hand over his, leaning into him.

"Thinking about discussing our, ah, _situation_, during the trip," she asked with mischief dancing in her eyes.

"Possibly," he replied honestly. "But the commander's health is my chief concern. If something were to happen to him in transit, we would be losing easily our greatest tactical mind in the clan." He pushed open one of the twin doors leading out of the training facility's west end, the sunlight knifing down from above, merciless in the face of the gruelling hour they'd all spent inside of the darkened training facility. Samus held her breath for a moment, slowly taking in a single long breath and holding it, allowing the natural odors and pollens of the outer world to fully work into her nose, throat and lungs before flooding herself with more. This was yet another trick she'd learned from the chozo during her training, one which often allowed warriors of their clans to adapt to new environments far more quickly than their enemies throughout the ages.

"The commander said he had a present for me if I managed to pass this test today," Samus said, starting slowly toward the nearby village, setting her rifle to full pulse setting. Marcher did the same; there were some fairly aggressive animals in the wooded area around their current hometown, and nobody went to or from the training facility unarmed. "Any idea what it is?" Marcher grinned and waggled one long finger at her.

"Tut tut, Samus. It's not for me to ruin the surprise," he said playfully. She gave him a faux glower, then jogged ahead, visually sweeping the path ahead for signs of wildlife. By the time she and Marcher got to the village, they'd only seen a single zeppara, a kind of oversized, claw-wielding rabbit the chozo enjoyed making stew of. Samus had pegged it with a single blast of her rifle, cutting its head off with a few swipes of her vibroknife and carrying it by its tail. As she came upon Red Wind near the outermost dwelling, she handed the carcass over to the smaller chozo.

"Can you prep it for us, brother," she asked of him. Red Wind nodded, carrying it inside of the humble hut. She then squared herself to Marcher, expression flat once more, returning to her usual demeanor. "We should part here for now. I'll try to track you down later on, after I've had the chance to speak with the commander. My thanks for your participation today, brother," she said, raising her left pointer and middle finger to the center of her forehead, then sweeping her hand out to her side.

"Ever welcome, sister," Marcher replied, mirroring the gesture. The two parted ways then, the chozo heading west while Samus strolled further north, into the more densely populated part of the village. The structures were mostly narrow huts, composed of the various light woods of the surrounding forestland and stone, hand-shaped by the chozo and fitted to make each one capable of standing up to whatever weather circumstances might arise on the planet's surface. The bird-men possessed unrivaled prowess when it came to shaping stone of any sort, and Samus had never seen one use a tool to cut or grind down their material. Instead, they used their retractable claws to shape the object of their design.

This reverence for nature seemed in stark contrast with the chozos' expertise with technology and science, epitomized by the open-air diagnostics station which stood smack in the middle of the village square. Composed of dark, angular metal and holoscreens, the small turret was ringed by six rolling chairs, all fitted with a singular gala-wave projector which repelled moisture and wind in a ten foot radius, thus protecting the equipment. Samus didn't wholly understand the science behind it all, but she was grasping the basics, which was more than most humans could honestly claim.

_Then again, I'm not entirely human,_ she thought as she strolled past the displays. There was one cottage along the inside ring of the homes closest to the station which stood out among the others, a front deck protruding out around the front door. The wood of this structure was also darker than the others, and the windows along the exterior of the house revealed nothing on the inside; they were all actually two-way mirrors. The only time Samus had ever been able to see inside had been late at night, when the cottage's owner kept light on in whatever room he was in, and nothing more. It was up onto that deck she stepped, rapping twice on the solid door and taking one step back.

Commander Sun Streak was still bulky, but as he opened the door for her and looked down upon Samus Aran, she felt the wasp sting of concern at the sight of his sunken eye sockets, the flakes of crust near the corners of his beak. He was in bad shape, and only getting worse. None of the medical sciences the chozo knew of seemed capable of curing the degenerative condition they had come to refer to over the centuries as 'beak rot', and its conclusion was ever the same; the shrinking of body mass, the decay of the beak, and finally, convulsions during sleep, many of which resulted in death. The once-mighty Sun Streak, victor of over five hundred battles according to most of the tribe, their most deadly duelist in melee combat, had become a shade lesser than he once was.

And now, considering this, Samus felt even more committed to convincing him not to accompany her to Tau 3. She didn't think she could bear to see him wither right before her eyes during the trip, potentially passing away before even arriving at the massive floating space station. "Samus Aran," he rumbled, trying unsuccessfully to smile. "I have heard tell that you passed your test. This is well." Sun Streak ambled out onto the porch with her, pulling the door softly shut behind him.

"Yes, commander. I presume you and Gray Voice will rescind your objections to my departure, as promised," she said, careful not to make her statement a question. This was one of the tenets the commander had drilled into her head consistently, one which she took to heart; 'Expectations should not be made into requests, but statements of truth. Elsewise, you will always be asking, rather than telling.'

"That is correct," said the commander, sauntering down off of the porch. Samus followed him as he walked away from his own cottage, ambling away north and slightly east of his home. He walked with his hands folded behind his back, an unusual sight for Samus. In all the time she'd lived with the tribe, she had only seen him move this way twice before. Once, he had been heading to attend the hatching of four new chozo babes. The other time had been when he attended a funeral for Quiet Foot, one of the tribe's eldest members until a year before. "Gray Voice does not like that you are leaving us. I do not like it either. Very few of us want you to leave, but we all understand your drive, your desire. Humans ever suffer from wanderlust, and you are no exception, though Svestri you be, Samus Aran."

Samus made no verbal reply, simply nodding and following the older man. Their path took them just past the outskirts of the village once more, walking along a well-beaten sod pathway into the nearby woods. Samus hadn't bothered traveling up this path but a few times, years before. She knew there was a modest clearing about half a mile into the woods along the trail, and little else for the wayward wanderer. There weren't even that many animals in the area for hunting. She wondered momentarily if outhe commander was merely seeking a quiet place to talk away from prying eyes.

"Sir, there is something I need to discuss with you, regarding my departure," Samus finally chimed in as they passed out of the open fields and into the tree line. "I believe it would be best if you didn't come with me, sir."

"Intriguing," Sun Streak said with a half-grin, looking back at her for a brief moment. "Explain, if you would."

"Sir, you have beak rot. The less travel, generally speaking, the better. The more physically active you are, the quicker the disease will spread. We shouldn't even be taking this walk, and the rigors of a space flight would undoubtedly cripple you in short order," Samus said, her voice devoid of emotion, her words chosen for maximum efficiency.

"I agree completely," the commander said, ducking a low-hanging branch on the left side of the path. Samus ducked as well, more out of habit than need. She was still a good foot shorter than the commander, but whenever he moved, she mimicked the motion, trusting to his instincts and judgments where she couldn't immediately see what he did. Beak rot or no, he was still sharper than most. "I suppose you would recommend or request that Marcher North accompany you instead, yes?" Samus paused, noting the lightness in the commander's tone. _He knows,_ she thought.

"Actually, yes," she replied slowly, once more taking up the walk behind Sun Streak. "He is roughly of an age with me, on scale, and is nearly my equal in terms of his navigation and combat skills, though he lacks certain of my proficiencies."

"And will continue to, for he is not the same as you, Samus Aran," the commander said, guiding her into a dense bit of thicket, carefully ducking down and crouch-walking through a kind of tunnel of brush and bushes. "You are uniquely suited to this career path you have chosen to pursue, that of a bounty hunter. It is much like the way of a soldier, but without specified allegiances, except to oneself. He is a warrior, of the chozo. Your skills and preferences will always be different. But there is one commonality you share with one another."

"Oh?"

"Yes," said the commander, stopping long enough to pivot toward her and reveal a wide smile and eyes shimmering with mischievous delight. "An intense attraction to one another. Just don't let that get in the way of your task," he said, slipping quickly and seamlessly into utter seriousness. Samus nodded, and Sun Streak led her through more of the brush tunnel, coming round a corner perhaps fifty meters on.

He finally stopped and turned once more toward her, his frame filling the exit from the pathway. Samus raised an eyebrow at him. "Sir?"

"I have waiting for you two gifts, Samus Aran, and they are not merely from me, but from the tribe entire. We know you will make the best use of both, but I feel it necessary to inform you that while one of these gifts was suggested by all of the elders, the second was of my own choosing. Come, and see what awaits." Sun Streak wheeled about again and ventured forth, rising to full height and stepping aside to let Samus through. When she came out of the foliage, Samus gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth in shock and wonderment. Sun Streak put one still muscular arm around her shoulders, and gave her a light squeeze. "Brilliant, isn't it," he asked quietly.

Filling almost the entirety of the clearing they had come to was a heavy gunship. Crimson and gold, it was shaped almost like a beetle without legs or antennae, held aloft on landing bolts. Four anti-grav pulsors lined its undercarriage, along with several repeater plasma cannons, and just under its front visor ports stood two more heavy-duty rail guns, primed and ready for combat. Grappler arms were fixed along its flanks, extended as a couple of chozos on ladders adjusted the joints with their tools and spanners, none of them aware that Samus was present.

"It's amazing," she rasped. "Simply amazing."

"And look there," said Sun Streak, pointing to what Samus had thought was another chozo, this one wearing a modified space combat suit. A second, more intense look informed her, however, that the helmet was rounded, shaped for a humanoid head, and the torso had none of the bulges most chozo armor was known for. Chromatically, it matched the gunship, and the right arm appeared to be prepared into a multiform attachment. "Samus, these I present to you, as offerings of proof of our pride in you."

In the first, she could but stare in wonder, until the sight drew close, her senses strained tight as all focus narrowed upon the suit. In a moment of bafflement, she went from thinking that she had used her heightened training of sight to view the armor at a distance to revelation that her legs had carried her, absent of her conscious will, right up before it. She ran one hand along the bulging shoulder plating, drinking in the promised strength and grace of its design, noting the expert craftsmanship which barely concealed the pneumatic pistons and gears peppered about the joints in the armor.

"I recognize this torso construction, but it isn't precisely chozo," Samus commented, looking back over to the commander. He had followed her over, but was now keeping a respectful distance from the armor. Among the chozo, whenever a new weapon or armor was received from the tribe, it was seen as an almost sacred moment, not to be sullied by the presence of another. Sick though he was, the commander remained stolidly observant of many of his people's olden ways.

Still, Samus's observation reached him. "It has been fashioned using a mix of traditional design, and record logs of your father William's armor," the elder chozo replied with a grin. "You were not blessed with a wealth of days with him, but we all know how much you loved him. We agreed that you would welcome the opportunity to honor him in this way."

Samus looked away from Sun Streak, once more marveling at the suit. "Father," she whispered, touching the mounted helmet lightly. "I wish you were here."

There had been no active hits for his new identity when he checked in on Station Xavier, pulling his shuttle into a free dock with the skill of old and repeated practice. Considering how long it had actually been since flying such a basic vessel, Beaker considered it something of a miracle that he managed without causing damage to himself, the shuttle, or the dock. When he stepped out onto the pilot/passenger platform, he produced an identitag and held it out to a Federation Security Forces officer making the rounds. The young human scanned the card, read his wrist comp, and handed the tag bag without so much as even a perfunctory smile or nod.

_Standard procedure, nothing to see here, move along civilian, _the turaki thought with a quirk of his whiskers. His first stop on the station was only a few corridors away, and he wasted no time on the handful of tourist shops peppered throughout the primary entrance corridor between the dock and the station's primary atrium. He passed scores of smiling, buzzing people, mostly human, all of them blissfully unaware that one of the Galactic Federation's most wanted criminals sauntered in their midst. Had he been the menace he'd been in younger days, he might well have used a juvian stabbing needle to poison and kill a dozen people, inciting station-wide panic for little more than a laugh.

But he had grown since those days, and such laughs were the property of unknowing, arrogant youth and lifelong psychopaths. Now he simply made note of what faces stood out in the crowds, who looked too curious about certain people. Anyone sporting non-standard militia armor or weapons of an exotic nature also quickly earned a second look, because in all things, he had to be cautious. After all, he had spent years on K-2L without raising any alarms from Federation forces, only to be caught out by Billy Aran, a bounty hunter.

Not that Aran had been an average man of his trade, however. Among all manner of outlaws, he had been deeply respected, even feared. But his style was not merciless, as was that of so many of his peers, no. Instead, he had been _relentless_, which proved far more damning for those making their living outside of the boundaries of standard galactic law.

Aran had worked with some few men and women over the years who learned from his style, and keeping an eye out for them had been a marked priority as soon as Beaker escaped Zebes. No one had come in search of him from the organization, thankfully, and thus far, he had escaped detection from the law. Neither of those groups worried him, however. Bounty hunters had a huge profit motive, though; he was currently worth 2.5 million credits as a live capture, 1.25 if brought in dead.

It was this caution that forced him into one of the shops just off the main station atrium as he exited the primary corridor. A lone man in Higherguard Mark III armor, sporting an electro-halberd on his back, had caught his eye, a man clearly out of place among the civilian populace. Beaker slipped into a coffee shop, getting in line before checking over his shoulder for another glimpse of the man. His guess proved right moments later as the man hollered at someone else in the crowd, a reptilian humanoid who immediately began shoving his way through the people, trying to run away.

He would have to wait a short bit before continuing on his business, but that was a small price to pay for his freedom.

Samus snap-rolled forward once again, this time adjusting for the Variasuit's momentum enhancers, rising inches away from Marcher instead of barreling into him as she had three times already. He chuckled as she stepped back and sagged, tired from the long hours spent training with the suit. "Much better, Samus Aran," he said, slowly clapping. She pulled off the helmet and shook out her ponytail, taking an exaggerated bow.

"Thank you, Marcher," she replied. "Will you be ready to depart as scheduled?" She grabbed a bottle of water from outside of the grassy ring she had brought him to, just beyond the ship in the woods. The day was dismal and wet, her armor slathered with mud and dirt. It was ideal for the purposes of training, in her mind; prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

"I will be, yes. Four days," he said, casting about the tree line. "Except for the mission to K-2L, I haven't left this planet for more than a week since we first arrived. It is as much my home as anyplace else I've ever been." He shifted his weight and gave Samus a brief look of something akin to longing. "It will be difficult to leave it, even if only for a short time." Samus logged that away in her mind, that she might bring it up later when she had to have another, slightly more difficult conversation with the young chozo warrior named Marcher North. She already knew him well enough, as well as the circumstances of their near future, to have an idea of how and when that dialogue would take place.

_At least I've some time before then,_ she thought. "I can imagine," she offered. "But at least we'll have each other for company, and quite possibly one of the finest gunships in the 'verse to travel in until we get to the Federation station. It should prove a pleasant experience for the both of us." She used a swift internal control mechanism to open the torso hatch of the suit, climbing up out of it and stepping forward, her Zero Suit creaking as she stretched. Her wrists cracked loudly, as did her lower back, each pop eliciting a wince from Marcher.

"I fear what could happen to you if you continue training this hard in the Variasuit," he said. Samus laced her hands together behind herself and bent forward, trying to work out knots in her shoulders.

"I have to train in it at full force, Marcher. Otherwise, it will become the world's heaviest paperweight." She stood back up and rotated each arm individually, then sighed, turning about and pressing her thumb to a small yellow panel on the Variasuit's chest plating. The suit whirred shut, the left arm coming up in a hooked uppercut upon which she set the helmet. "I have it mostly under control, anyhow. How long did it take you to become used to your war suit?"

"A week and a half, ten days or so as I recall," he replied, walking with her back down the path toward the village. "It was brutal, and Grey Voice offered me no quarter. He oversees those of us who become sentinels." Samus nodded, paying only partial attention. The majority of her thoughts were already spiraling off into space, wondering after what sort of sights she would witness once she became a registered bounty hunter. Marcher was speaking once more, and she tuned herself to him. "The greatest sentinel in my graduating group was Carmine Wiseclaw, the brother who oversees the basic warrior training now that the commander has taken his ease."

"Carmine?" Samus paused a moment, eyebrow quirked. "Does he possess the right temperament for the task? He seems a bit, well, easygoing for the job."

"There is steel if one burrows deep enough, Samus Aran," Marcher replied with a grin. "As I recall, you once thought I was little more than a footsoldier myself." Samus ducked through the final bit of brush blocking the path into the village, shaking her head slightly.

"Your own words, not mine, Marcher. Although, I will confess, I didn't think much of your abilities when first I saw you training with the others. You were being knocked about by Bulaf Weingart."

"And yet," he said, leading her on as they came to her cabin. Samus pressed her way inside the humble abode, a sparsely furnished central chamber opening off to a bedroom and a bathroom. The central chamber's left side from the entrance was a small kitchenette, rarely used since she took most of her meals with Marcher and his parents a few cottages over. She unzipped the front of the Zero Suit, then disappeared into her bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar so she continue speaking with Marcher, who respectfully remained in the middle of the central chamber.

"And yet perhaps twenty minutes later, you were toying with him as if he were a child, using some of his very own maneuvers against him at easily twice the speed he'd used them at," Samus said at last. She slid out of the Zero Suit entirely then, a plain set of smallclothes her only cover until she changed into a clean set and donned a long-sleeved white shirt and khaki pants. She slipped her feet into a soft pair of moccasins, and returned to the central chamber, sitting slowly in one of the two cozy armchairs situated on either side of a crude fireplace. She nodded to the empty one, and Marcher took it up. Samus pulled the hair tie off of her hair and shook it loose, letting it hang over her shoulders.

"It's a training technique I picked up early on, working with Grey Voice," said Marcher. "He taught us that if you see a new maneuver in training with others, you should allow the wielder to use it against you, repeatedly if necessary, until you understand every moment of the technique." Marcher rose and reached under the mantle, flipping a concealed switch to turn on the fire. He stared down into the flames a long moment before softly saying, "Bulaf never forgave me for that day."

Samus, feeling restless with her guest on his feet, headed over to the kitchen area to begin brewing tea for them to relax with. "Why would he be angered? Weren't you just following Grey Voice's teachings?"

"I was," said Marcher, still gazing at the flames. "But very few of us can actually do as he suggested. The technique had been handed down through generations of Bulaf's clan, and had never been used by an outsider. He felt I had dishonored him." Samus returned to her seat, and thankfully, Marcher followed her lead.

"That isn't logical," she replied evenly. "You were merely doing what you had been trained to do."

"He did not see with the clarity of wind as you do, Samus Aran," he said. This expression had been used in reference to her on several occasions, and she had let it go unquestioned. Now, however, in the comfort of her own home, she felt bold enough to ask.

"What does that mean, precisely," she inquired evenly. Marcher cleared his throat and looked into the fire for a moment before meeting her gaze.

"It is a phrase used to say that a person sees events or hears information without emotion, without heart. It can be used either as an insult or a compliment. You know, I trust, how I mean it." Samus nodded, rising to fetch them their tea as the kettle began to whistle.

"Yes, I do. I hear it in your tone of voice. But when Doza says it, she seems almost angry with me," she said.

"Doza teaches the ways of spirit. She does not trust those who can close their hearts, even for a moment. It is not a failing in you, Samus. I admire your control."

"Well," she said, sipping her tea. "Let's just hope that control carries over to the gunship once we've departed." They shared a chuckle, then proceeded to discuss plans for their voyage.

Soon enough, she would learn all about control in the 'verse.


	11. Chapter 11- Sign Here

Samus opened the weapons trunk and stepped back, allowing the Federation officer to inspect her and Marcher's armaments. They had been traveling for two days when the frigate came upon them, using a hummer pulse to disable their engines but keep the rest of their systems operational. An anonymous message came over the comms and informed Samus that her vessel, being unregistered in Federation space, was going to be boarded for inspection and, if allowable, registration.

The frigate had then drawn her ship into one of its internal bays, four heavily armed officers bursting through the ship's side hatch before realizing that there wasn't really much room for all of them. As such, one ranking officer remained as the others exited.

"Mind telling me what this contraption is, miss," the officer asked, pulling a kind of studded glove from inside the weapon trunk. Samus shook her head slightly.

"I don't mind at all, officer," she said. "That's a Harper-Lansig Shock Glove, utilized in melee combat. The studs on the exterior produce intense electrical shocks upon impact, while the interior is insulated with a shock-resistant material which keeps the wielder safe from the same said shock. It is a weapon favored by close range fighters." The officer raised one eyebrow at her, nodded, and set the gloves aside. He shuffled through several more items, finally pulling out a stuffed orange cat. He held it up with the same questioning expression. "From my childhood, sir."

"You don't strike me as the sentimental type, miss," the officer said. Samus said nothing, and the officer set the plush doll back in the box, gently easing the lid down. "Well, scans show your ship is above-board on all specs, but you've got a few modifications on your weapons' systems that we're not familiar with. Any background either one of you can offer me on that?" Marcher cleared his throat and took one step from the wall where he and Samus had placed themselves during the inspection.

"I can tell you about those, sir," said the chozo warrior. "This gunship, while primarily humanoid in style, was constructed and fitted by my people. As such, all weapons systems can have their energies diverted to defensive and maneuvering systems in times of need, with very little preparation required. We prefer short, sharp engagements when ship-to-ship combat is necessary, and as such, always keep our vessels prepared for the option of escape." The officer checked his wrist-comp for a moment, tapped a few holokeys, and closed the outer panel on his forearm.

"Well, all checks out, then," said the officer. "I'm just going to need an eye and hand scan from you, ma'am, and then a primary ship registration fee." Samus let the officer perform his scans, then handed him her cred-pack to pay the fee. When she saw him enter the amount, she shook her head slightly.

"Excuse me, sir," she said. "I believe you overcharged me for the vessel's registration. This is just a gunship. Standard rate for such in the Galactic Federation is 1500 credits." The officer nodded, and brought up his wrist comp again, using a holodisplay to show registration rates. When he scrolled down a few markers, he highlighted an entry entitled, 'Gunship- Exotic'.

"Chozo designs are not considered standard within Federation space," the officer said evenly. "I mean no offense, sir, it's the regs," he said to Marcher. The chozo warrior just held one hand up in a passive dismissal. The officer then held out a small data pad and offered Samus a stylus. "Just sign here," he added, and she did.

When the pair were once more en route, Samus was silent for a few minutes before declaring, "I hope it isn't all red tape like this."

She was in for a rude awakening.

Sevjik didn't mind dealing with most of the guests in the extended stay suites on the station. They tended to be quiet, keeping largely to themselves and maintaining relatively clean quarters. They didn't make too many odd requests like some of the one-night guests on holiday were prone to. Most importantly for Sevjik, this sub-group of guests tended to pay generous tips from time to time in order to ensure that the staff had never seen them, or anyone like them, if they were questioned.

Recently, however, one particular guest registered as an extended stay had been troubling him. It wasn't the fact that the newcomer was a turaki; Sevjik had no prejudices against any other civilized species in the 'verse. He hadn't made any outlandish requests, always a plus. Lastly, the man had paid for three months up-front, rarely done by frequent travelers, no matter how certain they thought their schedules.

What troubled Sevjik about this turaki was a combination of the way the cat-man moved and the soft-spoken politeness he always put forth to those around him. Sevjik was a young human man from the planet Farjis III, an outer territory planetoid barely within the boundaries of the Federation. On his home world, humanity barely struggled to eke out an existence between limited food resources and fighting off the world's other primary predator, a kind of land-walking, air-breathing shark known as shaxirs. It was those creatures' measured, graceful bodily movements that the turaki reminded him of when he was out and about, a vicious, merciless violence barely kept out of sight just below the surface. The calm, almost unfocused look in the turaki's eyes unnerved Sevjik, as he could imagine that the other man was, in those moments, contemplating the most fascinating ways in which to slowly and painfully end the life of another sentient being. Or two.

As for the turaki's measured interactions with others, Sevjik had come across people like that a lot over the years, and they were almost always one of two sorts- either they were heavily medicated, or they were killers trying to pass themselves off as approachable.

So it was with his nerves jittering about like dots of bacon fat in the pan that Sevjik approached the turaki's suite door on the seventh floor of the station's lodging center. The hallways were narrow and unfurnished, keeping obstruction to a minimum; if he should have to run for his life, the turaki would catch him up and get hands on him in virtually no time. _I'm going to die today,_ he thought over and over as he made the last few steps to the suite. He adjusted the package his supervisor had given him to deliver under his arm, knocked on the door, and steeled himself for the worst.

He counted to ten, and was about to start knocking again when the door eased open, absent the sound of locks of any kind. _Of course he doesn't lock the doors,_ Sevjik thought. _He's the reason other people lock theirs._ He cleared his throat, tried on a plastic smile, and held up the plain brown package with a small shrug of his shoulders. "For you, Mr. Mensonge," he said. The turaki, Mensonge, took the package with one fluid motion, his left hand snaking out, claws pressing just hard enough to keep the box held aloft.

"Thank you," said Mensonge, stepping back into his suite and flicking the door shut with one foot. He quirked one ear up, pressing it to the door so he could listen to poor Sevjik scurrying away like a frightened rat. He might have been amused under other circumstances, but he found nothing to laugh about in the young man's reaction to him. After all, if what amounted to a hotel errand-boy could sense that there was something off about him, he would never be able to maintain his cover in the presence of professional law enforcement or bounty hunters.

Beaker would likely have to be on the move once again, and soon. He carried the plain package over to his rented bed and opened it, pulling out the slim datapad that had been shipped to him and activating it. A holoscreen projected upward, showing an image of Ridley seated in a spacious, darkened cavern of blue stone. The space dragon looked dazed on the projector, and his upper chest appeared to have sustained several minor wounds.

"Beaker, my old friend," the space dragon rumbled on the recording. "The situation has somehow managed to get worse. The metroids now attack our members indiscriminately, myself included. The ones who have been spawned through the beta-wave manipulation are no less than twice as aggressive as those born through the natural process. Mother Brain has ordered a sweep and control operation, of which I am the chief enforcement agent. As you can see, I have met with some resistance from the metroids.

"She has not given up tracking you down, my friend. Three more trackers she has sent out into the 'verse to look for you, never seeming to suspect that I have any means by which to make contact. She doesn't seem to trust me at all, really, which is all to the good, since she should not. I fear she is secretly hoping the metroids kill and devour me, which they have been doing with the human and turaki members of our organization. For some reason, they do not eat the crickets," he said with a bitter bark of a laugh, referring to the insectoid creatures that had joined the Space Pirates. On screen, Beaker saw Ridley's reptilian expression suddenly fall grave. "Beaker, listen to me carefully; I'm going to lead a blitzkrieg assault on the tunnels and labs where the metroids tend to gather. It's going to get pretty nasty. I won't likely survive unscathed. That means I'll probably go into either a partial healing trance afterwards, or a full one. In any event, it won't be safe for you to send me a response message. This will have to be our farewell, friend. For how long, I do not know," Ridley said, looking away from the camera and shaking his head, eyes drooping shut. "I am sorry, my friend. I hope you find the peace you deserve from here on. Ridley out."

The holodisplay blinked off then, leaving Beaker alone with his false identity and a silence that felt more like doom than peace.

The dockmaster at the station held out a datapad for Samus as she finished securing the gunship remotely from her variasuit's built-in wrist comp, giving her the kind of blank, vacant stare that one might associate either with boredom or lobotomies, depending on mood. Samus glanced at the datapad and saw there an agreement in text to pay three hundred credits for the right to dock her vessel on the station on this visit and for two future visits, so long as the total amount of time the ship was docked did not exceed seven standard-hour days. All she had to do was sign the pad to agree, since her vessel was now registered with the Federation; her cred-stick needn't come out at all. She met the slack, glazed eyes of the dockmaster, a chubby officiant who seemed to not notice that someone was not just going through the motions and signing off on his pad until almost a full minute passed. "You gonna sign or what, miss," he asked, the words coming with some difficulty. _He likely rarely has to ask,_ Samus thought. "If not, you'll have to make arrangements for a short-term pass or leave."

"I will not sign off for that amount," Samus replied. "Do you sell these short-term passes through your pad there?"

"Aye," said the dockmaster, tapping several buttons on the datapad and handing it towards her once more. Samus looked at the text, then let out a grunt. "What?"

"Sir, that says that for half the price, I can only keep my vessel here for four hours. This is frankly ludicrous."

"So sign off on the standard package and we'll all be on about our business, yeah," replied the dockmaster, offering her the original form once more. She exchanged a brief, meaningful look with Marcher, who just shrugged his shoulders, and then signed her name on the pad's holodisplay. The dockmaster handed her a thin blue plastic chip, which she put into one of her belt pouches before walking past him with Marcher in tow. The pair passed through a looming archway into a wide, open cement patio of some sort, off of which opened the station's central walkways.

Samus led Marcher over to one side of the patio area, where a series of wall screens gave directions to various offices and businesses on the station. With her helmet settled on the rear neck hook of her variasuit, she appeared too small for the armor, but she moved with absolute certainty, half-turned toward her chozo companion. "Third level, quadrant two," she said. "That's me." She took a deep, steadying breath, turning fully to face Marcher now. They had been intimate with one another several times on their journey from the tribe's new home world to the station, and had spoken at length about what each of them was looking forward to doing with their lives once they parted ways. Now that the time had come to do just that, however, Samus found herself experiencing a sensation she had not felt since the day after her father passed; regret.

"Samus Aran," said Marcher, straightening his stance, setting his jaw. "Go forth into the universe with the fortune and favor of those who came before you, and take with you as well the blessing of the tribe." Samus brought her right fist up over her heart and inclined her head to him.

"And may you have glory in all battles you see, my friend," she replied. They embraced for a moment, and before either could second guess themselves, Marcher North turned on his heel and strode away, and Samus sped off in the other direction, heading for a lift to the third level. She kept her eyes forward, but made certain to make note of anyone and anything that seemed out of place or potentially dangerous. By the time she made it to the lift, she had only spotted one individual who she felt compelled to remember, an average-sized turaki man with the cool, calculating eyes of a long-time killer.

Samus rode the lift up the third level, crammed in with four other people. Two of her fellow passengers were wearing Stigtech Mark II heavy combat armor, and they each held a raggedy looking fellow with hands clamped behind their backs in vibroshackles. When the lift stopped, Samus found herself following right behind these four gentlemen into the wide, open entrance for the Galactic Federation's Bounty Office only a hundred yards from the lift. She stayed well back from them as they guided their bounty heads to the duty desk, while she cast a quick glance around the entrance chamber. Off to the right side of the front room, she noticed another duty desk, this one occupied by a stout, tough-looking woman in something similar to Samus's own Zero Suit, but dark orange and looking more plate-like in its assemblage. She headed through the front entrance and approached this second desk, making certain to make each movement pronounced and noticeable.

When she stopped before the desk, the other woman said, "State the purpose of your visit, civilian," without looking up from her workstation display.

"I'm here to register as a bounty hunter within Galactic Federation space," Samus said flatly. This caught the woman's attention, bringing her eyes, a brilliant golden hue, up towards Samus. A tiny motion at the corner of her mouth was the only flicker of emotional response, however.

"Rare to see a human woman registering for this kind of work," said the woman at the desk, her eyes slowly moving from the top of Samus's head down toward her feet, then back up again. _Cybernetic implants,_ Samus thought. _She's scanning me._ "Then again, you're not entirely human, are you miss?"

"I am Svestri, ma'am," Samus replied, clearing her throat as she did so. She didn't care for being made to feel awkward in such a public way, but thankfully, there weren't exactly a large number of people hanging around near the bounty office's entrance. The clerk woman tapped a few buttons, and the edging on Samus's side of the desk flashed faint blue, the paneling exposing several blank panels of blue light.

"Please remove your armor's gauntlets and place your hands on the sensor panels, miss," the clerk said. Samus did as asked, and pulled her hands back after a loud _beep_ sounded. "Thank you, miss. Let's just see who you are." The clerk tapped away for a few moments, then visibly flinched back in her seat from the holodisplay. "Samus, Aran?" The clerk slowly tilted her head back until she was once again looking Samus in the eyes. "As in," she stammered in a hushed voice.

"Yes," Samus said flatly. "My father was William Aran. Is that going to cause any sort of trouble with my registration?" The clerk shook her head quickly, rapidly firing away on her holo keypad. "Shall I be seated somewhere while I wait?"

"No," said the clerk, tapping another button off to one side. A section of the wall to her right, behind the desk, slid open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a narrow corridor. "You can head right down that way, Ms. Aran. My system has a message from the section chief to send you to him immediately."

"He knows I'm here," Samus asked, curious.

"As soon as your name came through the system, he was likely notified," said the clerk, once more all business, though she still seemed to be recovering from her initial shock. "Please proceed, Miss." Samus pulled the gauntlets back on over her hands, twisting the securing links into place so that she could arm the right arm's morph cannon if she should need to. Walking around behind the clerk, Samus took a peek down and saw that the woman had no organic components below the waist; instead, the cyborg woman's upper half was situated on a kind of tank tread base, equipped with two hover pads between the front and back of the treads.

Samus swiftly carried herself down the narrow corridor, soft yellow lighting illuminating the flat surfaces around her. She walked for only about twenty seconds before the wall panel in front of her slid aside, revealing a round, austere metallic chamber, a single oversized circular desk dominating the central space. Seated behind it was a humanoid of sorts, his head that of a rhino, dressed in an ersatz military uniform of sorts. Spread across the desk surface in front of him were several holodisplay panels and various weapon components, as well as a half-visor, which he promptly took up and hooked around one ear and cheek, rising to his feet and squaring himself with Samus.

The rhino-man was enormous, but he only stood a few inches taller than she in her Variasuit. If she put the helmet on, they would be of an equal height and broadness. Samus sensed a kind of familiarity in this man, as if she had seen him somewhere before, but could not quite put her finger on where. The rhino-man came slowly out from behind his desk toward her, looking her up and down with a smile slowly, uncertainly forming on his lips. He put his hands out toward her, palms up, elbows crooked. "Little Sammy Aran," he said, his voice rumbling, yet somehow gentle, fatherly. Hearing 'Sammy' in that voice kicked open a door in her memory, and Samus felt herself relax, her own mouth quirking up at one corner in a grin.

"Uncle Veris," she said, taking his hands in her own after taking off her gauntlets. She noticed that his fingers were calloused and rough, as well as somewhat chilly. A quick squeeze informed her that his hands had been broken numerous times over the years, several of his fingers having healed improperly, the bones repaired but never put quite to rights. "You've barely changed since last I saw you," she said lightly.

"Your memory is being kind to me," the big man replied, lowering his hands from hers gradually. "Your father was always very complimentary with people, very politic without being obvious about it. That's part of what made him a great hunter, dear," he said with a wink. "Come, have a seat," he added, guiding himself back toward his desk, taking out a pair of tea cups and a thin blue bottle from one of his drawers as he sat back at his post. Samus took one of the two seats opposite him as he poured a steaming, olive green fluid into the cups and pushed one toward her. "Jarkisi. It's a rare beverage, brewed with a blend of flowers from my home system." Samus lifted her cup to him in a casual salute, braced herself for the burn, and found herself gasping as she swallowed it, a grin lighting her features.

"Sweet," she said, surprised.

"You thought it was alcohol," Veris said. He chuckled, shook his head. "I haven't had such drink in many years, my child, but I do have a sweet tooth I indulge perhaps too often. Do you like it?"

"Very much so, sir, yes," Samus replied, finishing off her glass.

"I should hope so. That's about fifteen credits' worth you just drank down," Veris said. Samus quirked one eyebrow at him. "Yes, a single bottle runs about two-hundred credits. Expensive for a sweet beverage, I know, but with a successful career as a bounty hunter, you can enjoy such comforts." He took her glass and his own, setting them behind him on another section of the circular desk. When he faced her again, he reached under the desk top and drew out a datapad, pulling up several holodisplays. "This is the legal agreement for joining the ranks of registered bounty hunters with the Federation. I assume you've already read it before if you've come this far?"

"Affirmative, sir," Samus said, back straightening, her attention instantly tuned up.

"Excellent. All I need from you, then, is a hand scan, a retinal scan, and a signature." Samus placed her bare hand on the datapad, then let Veris scan her eyes. He handed her then a plain white slate, which she tapped to bring up a copy of the standardized contract. "Samus, are you ready to follow in your father's footsteps?"

"I am, sir," she said solemnly. Veris brought his finger around the side of the slate in her hand, tapping the line on the bottom.

"Then just sign here."


	12. Chapter 12- The Big One

Samus fired another round from her arm cannon and took cover around the corner as a pair of thugs returned fire, their own blaster bolts scorching the wall of the hallway opposite where she stood. Her helmet's internal head's up display gave her a quick rundown of the men and women who she'd already killed on the ship, identifying each one by name and value on the bounty lists for being 'captured' dead. She grumbled, but knew that there was no other way around it; she was going to have to kill these next two men before trying to capture the primary bounty head on the contract alive.

She tapped a panel on her left leg, which whirred open instantly. She reached in, scooped out a flashing blue metal ball, and hook-threw it around the corner. She heard a pair of alarmed shrieks, then planted her feet as a powerful vibration rocked the ship, her electroblast grenade having decimated not only her targets, but all auxiliary electronics in the chamber not protected from high voltage shocks. The ship's warning systems kicked in, klaxons turning the auditory landscape into a blaring hell, crimson and yellow lights flashing along the walls. Samus adjusted the volume with a few blinks, then came out from her cover. The two goons lay in charred heaps of blackened flesh and leathers, their weapons reduced to useless blocks of metal grafted to the floor. The smell, thankfully, was also muffled by her helmet's retinal controls.

The chamber she had fragged with her grenade appeared to be a navigation room, common on these older transport vessels. The corridor she'd just come out of stretched from the rear of the ship to the front, taking only one jog to a side for the nav room and bridge, closed off on the other side of the chamber. Samus used the control panel on her suit's right arm to adjust her cannon's output to a stun level, slowly approaching the blast door that stood shut before her, covered by a thin, vibrating blue dome of energy. She activated the boom amplifier in her helmet and cleared her throat.

"Dorian Phasilik," she said loudly but without inflection. "I have killed all fifteen of your cohorts. You are also expendable in accordance with the guidelines of your bounty contract. However, you needn't lose your life. Disarm yourself and come out here, and I guarantee your safe delivery to a bounty station near our current location. If you make me work my way in there, I won't try to kill you right away, but you'll be showing up at the bounty station with more than a few bruises. Attack me in either case, and I will not hesitate to terminate your life. You are still worth six-thousand credits as a proof of death recording on my helmet. Make your choice; live or die." Never once during this entire delivery did Samus's voice shift in any way, and it was perhaps because of this merciless, emotionless drone that Phasilik, a reptilian humanoid dressed in leather traveler's armor, came scampering out of the bridge after swiftly disabling the protective shield on the blast door and throwing it open, hands on his head. He skidded to a kneeling halt on the floor in front of her, shaking his head.

"I surrender, I surrender," he groveled, shaking his head back and forth. He looked over at his slain comrades and managed to turn his head away from the bounty hunter before emptying the contents of his stomach on the scorched floor. "Dear gods, why," he croaked.

"They resisted arrest. Strongly," Samus said, cannon aimed down at Phasilik. "This is going to sting," she added, firing the stun shot at the back of the lizard-man's head, dropping him to the floor. She secured his hands behind his back with vibroshackles, attached a hover pad to his belt, and began carrying him back through the old scavenger vessel toward the cargo hold. The hold had been breached with a simple blast of her gunship's main cannon, and Samus had applied a docking field from her ship's side port to the hole in the span of only a few seconds. One of the outlaw's henchman had been unfortunate enough to be sucked out into space before the field locked on, but her helmet's video feed had already been activated, so she would be counting him toward her total payment at the office.

She carried Phasilik through the field and onto her ship, closing the port behind her and deactivating the field. With the gunship's controls slaved to her helmet on a short-range wavelength, she activated pulse panels on the side of the vessel, pushing the outlaw ship off to drift through the emptiness. It wasn't part of the contract, so she wasn't about to waste more resources either trying to capture it or destroy it. Samus deposited Phasilik in a small room her tribe had crafted into a holding cell for her, set a datapad on the floor next to him with prerecorded instructions for the collapsible toilet and sink, and took her hover pad off of his belt. She exited the cell, secured the door, and headed to the cockpit, pulling up the nav system maps. She pulled off her helmet and set it on a hook on the side of the co-pilot seat, staring for a long moment at the empty chair. There had been nobody in that seat since Marcher North, two years of solitary flight and hunting leaving it standing almost as a relic.

"Where are you now, Marcher," she whispered. She shook off the momentary slip into nostalgia and fixed her attention on the nav maps, locking in on the nearest Galactic Federation station with a bounty office. She set the autopilot, gauged her travel time, and headed back to her own sleeping quarters, slipping out of the Variasuit and Zero Suit to hop into a much-needed and well deserved shower. She was careful to apply a combination cleaning/healing salve to her left bicep, which had been given a nasty gash by a Sigma-type vibroblade one of the outlaw thugs had been wielding. There weren't many melee weapons that could pierce the Variasuit with such ease, but the new Sigma model vibro weapons were no ordinary instruments of destruction.

When she was finished bathing and had changed into a fresh set of tunics, Samus carried the Variasuit and Zero Suit to the workroom on the ship's port side, opposite the holding cell. She grabbed the tools and materials she needed to make the small repairs to her armor from their respective cabinets, and set to work. It was the work of only about a half an hour, and the Zero Suit didn't take much more than that. When she was finished, Samus made her way once more to her sleeping chamber, setting an alarm for herself for a two-hour nap, then laying down on her personally contoured sleeping pad.

In the darkness, dreams. In the dreams, terrors.

_rattle rattle_

Samus stood in an open field of green, lush, vibrant grasslands stretching for miles in every direction, the scent of clean, freshly turned soil redolent in the air. A gentle, warm breeze passed over her, wrapping her in a deep sense of comfort. She looked around, and a hundred feet away stood her home on K-2L, her father beaming at her with his arms folded over his chest front the front deck. Samus took several steps toward him, her green hair blowing out behind her as she reached up to wave back to him. "Father," she called.

A crash of thunder tore the air, and her attention was drawn instantly skyward, where a hideous beast, all reptilian scales and bat-like wings and gleaming fangs, descended toward her father. "No," she murmured, shaking her head. "No! Father, run!" But too late the warning came, and Samus was thrown from her feet as a pulsing ball of green and crimson flame barreled into her father and his house, leveling them into a billion particles of destruction.

_rattle rattle_

She ran behind the nearest bit of cover she could find, a turned over land transport, avoiding the energy bolts flying at her. As she squatted down with her back to the vehicle, Samus glanced to her left, gasping as she came almost face-to-face with a young man in lightweight impact armor crouched beside her. Half of his head was missing, blown clean off, his brains and partially dislodged teeth hanging precariously on the edge of rattling loose. His remaining lip flesh had been seared intensely, pulling his face into a kind of permanent sneering grin.

"Been a while, yeah," the dead young man said through the din of weapons' fire crashing into the other side of her cover. His voice rang hollow in Samus's ears, as though he were yelling through a long tunnel mostly filled with water. "You know, you had other options with me." Samus couldn't recall the young man's name, but she would never forget his face.

"You were part of my third job," she said, pausing to pop her head up long enough to return a volley of shots. One struck a man in flimsy Par-Tech armor square in the chest, blowing a hole through him. Samus got back down, avoiding more bolts, back to the overturned transport. "You didn't comply with my order to disarm."

"I couldn't," the dead man said, bits of skull along the edge of his ragged head wound sliding down the ruin of his bloody face. "They'd poxied the blaster to my hand."

"I didn't find that out until later," Samus said, switching her arm cannon to frost blast mode. She reached her arm around her cover and fired blind, pelting out a dozen shots before pulling back. She could hear shouting, cries of alarm and calls for assistance. She didn't know who she was fighting, but apparently, she was winning. "It couldn't be helped."

"You could have used a stun blast," said the dead man. "But I wasn't the primary target. I wasn't worth much, just a hired hand. But you killed me, Samus Aran. You chose death over mercy." Samus shot the dead man a look of worry, and found him fading out of existence. "And it wasn't the only time, was it? All in the name of efficiency and logic."

_rattle rattle_

She blinked, and found herself sitting high up in a tree, her stealth field engaged, vision magnified through the helmet's visor. She was looking at a turaki woman with a pair of galvanized steel spikes jutting out of her legs just below her knees, howling in agony on the woodland floor. Samus's HUD informed her that her stealth field generator had only one hour of power remaining before recharge was required, but she knew she needed only a few minutes. The turaki outlaw's cohorts were closing quick.

Samus had been brutal in securing this trap, but given the tactics of this gang, she felt it best to take no chances. She had spotted the gang's lead scout ranging out ahead of the others, and using her stealth field, crept up on the turaki and stabbed the spikes into her legs from behind, yanking away her assault rifle as the outlaw fell screaming. Without her weapon or legs, the downed outlaw could only wildly rake her claws through the air, unable to see her assailant.

And now, here she was, up in the tree, living another memory. Unlike the previous one, however, this scenario played out just as it had in her real life; three fellow outlaws came to the sound of the turaki woman's screams, and each was swiftly dispatched by a blast from Samus's arm cannon. The bounty hunter dropped down out of the tree, landing in a crouch and sweeping around behind the tree as the primary target, the gang's leader, came upon the scene. Samus waited until he was within clear range, then used a stun blast from her cannon to drop him. After securing him in vibroshackles, she lifted him by his belt and began walking away.

"Wait," the turaki woman behind her cried out, causing Samus to pause. _No,_ Samus thought, _I didn't stop when this was really happening. She didn't cry out any actual words, just a kind of animal noise. I ignored her._ Yet now she found herself turning around, the target weighing heavy in her left hand. The turaki woman stood less than a foot away, her body torn apart by what looked like scavenger animal bites and burrowing insects, dozens of them squirming in and out of small holes bored through her body. Her eye sockets were wriggling tunnels of worms. "This is what I was just a day later, Samus Aran," the ghoul rasped at her, swaying drunkenly. "You got your prize, and left me to die. Do you know how many animals fed on me before I finally died?" Samus took a shaky step back, her head shaking slightly side to side. "I don't know either," said the ghoul.

_rattle rattle_

She sat up, blinking away this last horror as she recognized her gunship's sleeping quarters. Samus opened a sliding panel on the wall by her sleeping nook and pulled from within a small orange bottle of tiny blue pills, dry swallowing one with a grimace. The nightmares didn't come often, but when they did, they came with headaches and flashbacks for days after. Her career as a bounty hunter had been considered by most in her field to be remarkable. She had no broken contracts, no nullified primaries, and no customer cancellations in the entire time she'd been working within the Federation's space. Additionally, she had never been fooled with a 'trap sign', a type of contract taken out by outlaws in order to lure bounty hunters into ambush.

But she'd lately been hearing other snippets regarding her tactics, and one of the most common watch words had been 'merciless'. Her father had a reputation for being relentless, but this was always said in respectful tones; in her case, people spoke of her with a tone of dread. 'Deadly' had also been used frequently when her name came up. The Galactic Federation had her classified as 'Primary Capture, Secondary Clean-Up', meaning that she usually captured her primary bounty heads, but thugs and allies typically ended up dead. Her efficiency rating was top notch, which kept her in high demand, but no amount of professional success could make the nightmares stop.

She needed a job she could be proud of, something that could redeem her. Samus headed up to the cockpit, gauging her distance from the station she was auto-locked on to. According to her nav system, she would arrive in another ten hours. With nothing but time to kill, she took a seat in the pilot's chair, pulled up a holodisplay, and opened up a book file. She didn't take much time to leisure read anymore, and if something was going to help her forget the imagery of slumber, perhaps she could find it in the realms of fiction.

One could only hope.

_He's a fool,_ Ridley thought, sweeping through the data once again. _This won't end well._ The space dragon had been left to his own devices for several months now. After the last of the human Space Pirates had been slain by the planet's returning native creatures, Mother Brain hadn't seemed too concerned with replacing their numbers, instead opting to send orders to those who had left the planet's surface to keep away until further notice. The fleet mostly remained in the system, but a few ships had abandoned the organization entirely, forming their own splinter cells. Mother Brain had been only disturbed enough by this to send Ridley after a couple of the cruisers.

And Ridley, well, had done what he did best; he sought out and destroyed his employer's enemies. Doing her bidding without the compulsion of psionic manipulation had gained him several boons, one of which he currently accessed. He had been given dominion over one of the weapons labs in the compound, and had even been granted access to the extranet on the computers within. Unfortunately, this meant he could find out all manner of bad news, such as what he was currently reading over.

Utilizing encrypted software, he had gotten in touch with Beaker once more, but the turaki had clearly suffered a kind of crisis of conscience at some point. He had put out a bounty on his own head under his pseudonym, and even requested a specific bounty hunter to offer the task to first; Samus Aran. Reading that name gave Ridley a moment's pause, and after the fifth or sixth read-through, he realized why he recognized the name.

"Aran," whispered the space dragon, leaning back from the oversized holo-keyboard before him. "Billy Aran. So, you had yourself a brat at some point, huh? Let's see what she's got going on for herself." He quickly navigated through the extranet and found a couple of databases focused on those bounty hunters registered with the Galactic Federation. He scrolled through, comparing statistics, looking through all of the records associated with Samus Aran. From everything that was known of the young woman, she was not to be taken lightly. "Fruit didn't fall far from the tree, I see," he muttered to himself, disconnecting from the extranet and taking a step away from the terminal.

The space dragon started to head out of the computer lab, but no sooner did he open one of the oversized doors than four metroids swarmed him, their barbed legs kicking and thrashing at him as they tried latching onto his body to feed. He flapped his wings once in a large backward lunge, belching fire at the creatures. Two of the jellyfish-like monsters went down in smouldering heaps immediately, but the other two flanked around either side of the computer lab, staying up and out of the range of his whip-like tail. Ridley spat a fireball at the one on his left, and quickly launched through the air in a barrelling tackle on the right-hand metroid, landing with a stupendous crash into a heavy metal computer terminal, crushing both equipment and metroid under his massive arms, his claws ripping gelatinous innards as he flexed his hands to get up out of the heap.

As he was getting up, the fourth metroid landed on his lower back, unknown pincers from inside of its body stabbing into his flesh and filling him with a numbing toxin. Despite the strength of this chemical, Ridley managed to reach his scythe-like tail tip up to cut the creature in half. Unfortunately, the numbing agent had affected his precision, and the space dragon ended up gouging himself in the process. The sudden loss of blood dropped him to his hands and knees, but Ridley had enough strength to get to the chamber doors and activate the blast barrier, keeping any more of the nasty little bastards from getting at him.

As soon as that was done, he dragged himself to a terminal and reconnected to the extranet, sending Beaker one more message. He knew he wouldn't remember how to touch base with the turaki in a short while; he intended to heal from his current injuries, and then head out into the compound's corridors and go on a rampage against the swarm of metroids Mother Brain had allowed to overrun it. They would kill him, but his regenerative powers would kick in eventually, bringing him back as a more powerful, faster, and deadlier version of himself. The cost, as ever, would be a large chunk of his memory. He would recall Beaker eventually, but by the time he did, it would be too late to make contact.

But someone needed to know what was going on on the planet. If Beaker was going to be taken down by the offspring of Billy Aran, then maybe, just maybe, the woman would be able to do something about the organization her father had taken down so many pegs throughout his illustrious career. And perhaps he could help her do it.

"I certainly hope you can," Ridley said to himself, cracking his neck and letting his claws out, waiting for the paralytic serum in his system to get flushed out. "I certainly hope so."

"The payment has been transferred into your account, Miss Aran," said the robot teller, an odd assortment of bubble-like segments held together with flexible cable tubes and a head unit that looked somewhat like a cartoon frog's. Dubbed 'ribbits' by most consumers, they had become popular for use as menial clerks throughout the Federation. Samus enjoyed working with them, as they were completely impersonal, asking no prying questions, requiring no emotional bond or connection, not even for a moment. They were tools of commerce, and nothing more.

"Acknowledged," Samus replied, watching a couple of heavily armored Federation peacekeepers haul Phasilik away down a narrow corridor to a secondary shuttle port only accessible to law enforcement and bounty hunters in the station. She hooked her helmet back onto its carry hook on her hip and was about to walk away when the ribbit tapped her on the arm. "Something else I can do for you, clerk," Samus asked.

"There is a specific request for your response to a contract offer recently added to the boards," said the ribbit. "Would you like me to display the information for your evaluation?" Samus nodded, and the ribbit lifted one ball-like hand up off the desk, the palm sliding open to reveal a holoprojector. The orangish, translucent display flashed on, showing Samus a bounty contract offer. She read through it carefully, the target's name somehow familiar to her.

"Sync the file to my wrist comp and set the contract to accepted by primary requested agent," Samus said, holding out her left arm to the ribbit. The robot pulled a thin cord out of its head unit and plugged into her wrist comp, and after a few seconds, withdrew the plug and cord. Samus left the bounty office, swiftly making her way to a nearby coffee bar located on the same level of the station and tucking herself into a corner after ordering an overcaffeinated and overpriced beverage for herself. She activated her wrist comp's holodisplay after adjusting the privacy screen settings, reading through the information one more time. She typed in a few commands, running comparison programs while she sipped her drink and looked around at the sparse clientele of the coffee shop.

The wrist comp bleeped at her several times, and Samus found herself staring at the display in shock. She had never seen the bounty head herself, but she knew of him, thanks to her father's old records. The target was named Beaker, a turaki general with the Space Pirates. He was said, according to the contract, to have been spotted on Federation Station X-117, maintaining a false identity in order to spy on the Federation. The citizen offering the contract had left no visuals of themselves, just a name and a long-term station suite number where he was staying, as well as a promise of payment.

"X-117," Samus muttered to herself. "That's only a few hours away." She finished her drink and rushed off to the docks, somehow certain that this job was going to be the big one, the one that earned her the respect of her peers in the field.

Samus Aran did not know how close she was to becoming known across the 'verse.

Beaker chuffed a cloud of smoke from the corner of his mouth, feet propped up on the pillows at the end of the bed, ash tray sitting in easy reach. He tapped into it, cracked his neck, and stretched, his feline mouth opening wide enough to convince any curious onlooker that perhaps he was more serpent than cat. The cigarette nearly fell off of his lip onto the comforter, but he snatched it between two of his fingers before it could fall, taking one last drag before stubbing it out in the tray. He got up off of the bed, checking his wrist comp as he walked around the room, limbering himself up for what was coming. He knew he was going to be very uncomfortable for a little while, at least until Aran delivered him to the bounty office for collection, but beyond that, he would find a way to escape the custody of the Federation officers who would be coming to collect him.

He checked the time, lit one last cigarette. _She'll probably be here right after I put this out,_ he thought, looking at his holodisplay feeds from the station's docks, having hacked into the station security's visual feeds. She was just getting off of her gunship and dealing with the dockmaster, from what he could see. He took a long, slow drag of his cigarette, holding the smoke as long as he could without hacking. _Come one, girlie. I've been waiting for this._

He took another long drag, shut off his wrist comp, and waited.

Samus stalked down the corridor, her helmet's head's up display letting her know that there were humanoids in many of the rooms she was passing. She detected weapons with some of them, but only small-scale personal combat weapons, nothing of the sort that would make her even have to break a sweat to contend with. What was more, nobody seemed eager to come out into the hall to meet with her in any way, be it combatively or just out of curiosity. She had come expecting hired hands laying in wait to protect the target; instead, she seemed to have unfettered access to prey.

Samus arrived in front of the suite, a plain, unassuming door of wood between her and her prey. Her helmet's scanners detected no energy-based weapons beyond the door, and no gunpowder to indicate antique firearms. She deactivated her arm cannon, letting the right arm take its normal form, and knocked. A minute later, the turaki whose picture she had seen in the contract stood before her. He was, to her surprise, grinning up at her.

"Took you longer than I thought it would," said the turaki, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke up at her. "Well, come on inside. We have things to discuss before you turn me over for collection," he said, turning on his heel without hesitating and disappearing back into the room. Non-plussed, the bounty hunter just stood there a moment, incapable of even speech. "Today, Miss Aran," the turaki grumbled, and she finally followed him inside, shutting the door behind her. The turaki tapped his cigarette into an ashtray sitting on the lone bed in the room, seating himself on the edge.

"You're Beaker," she said.

"Astute observation, Miss Aran. I certainly hope you're brighter than first impressions would indicate."

"You took out a bounty on your own head," she added. "You're Allen Fosuk, the contractor."

"Very good, Miss Aran," Beaker said, pulling a datapad out of a duffel bag sitting beside him on the bed. "And as Fosuk, I have a second job for you, the details of which have been loaded onto this datapad. There will be no money in it from me, but I believe you'll understand the need for someone of your particular skill set taking the task on when you read through the files." Samus did not ask for clarification, instead taking up the datapad and activating it, reading swiftly through the initial information. She paced back and forth before the turaki outlaw, diving deeper and deeper into the data, both fascinated and stunned by what she was reading. A set of video files were attached, messages sent to Beaker by the very monster that had slain her father and destroyed her home on K-2L, the space dragon Ridley.

She could hardly believe how, well, _intelligent_, the creature seemed, speaking directly to Beaker on the recordings. Ridley was a monster, there was no doubt of that. The fact that he seemed capable of reason, logic, compassion, even friendship to a degree, did not serve to make him any less hideous to Samus; in point of fact, it made him more so to her. When she was finished reviewing the data, she tucked the datapad into her own equipment bag, carried on her back.

"So, what do you think, Samus Aran," Beaker asked, blowing another cloud of smoke. He looked a great deal older now than he had when his most recent mug shot had been taken, the fur around the top of his head and his whiskers having gone all to white and gray. "There's no money in that second job, not guaranteed up front, but I imagine the Federation will have some kind of reward squared away if someone were to take out the menace of Mother Brain and the metroids." Samus took out a set of vibroshackles from her belt, holding them at her side for a long moment.

"I imagine they will too," she said evenly, powering up the cuffs. "Finish your smoke, Mr. Beaker." She waited until he had stubbed out his cigarette, then helped him stand up, clapping the cuffs on his wrists behind his back. "Beaker, of the outlaw organization known as the Space Pirates, you are hereby placed under bounty arrest. You will be my charge until such time as you are delivered to a bounty office and released from my custody. I ask only that you cooperate and come quietly."

The turaki, to his credit, did just that.


	13. Chapter 13- Epilogue

The first wave of metroids had attacked the nearest settlements only minutes after Samus had handed general Beaker of the Space Pirates off to the Galactic Federation authorities, and she had been involved in the initial defense of Blisorin IV before taking off on her own, following the data trail on the pad the turaki had given her. She was a good five days' flight away from the planet where Mother Brain and her minions lay in wait, the gunship's auto-nav locked on, the Svestri bounty hunter going through calm, slow yoga movements to limber herself up.

Technically speaking, she should have informed someone at the Federation's bounty hunter liaison office that she was taking off. Moreover, she probably should have shared the coordinates that Beaker had given her with the Federation, but something told her that if a large presence approached that region of space, the entire organization would bring all of its forces to bear, wiping out any patrol or assault that the Federation could mount unless it brought every Dreadnaught-class cruiser in its fleet to bear. Her gunship alone was barely noticeable unless someone was specifically searching for it or for active weapons systems; she'd be able to sneak into the system and land on the planet without detection, so long as she channeled power away from the weapons.

She finished another set of stretches and hit the shower, changing into her Zero Suit when she dried off afterward. She went to the work room then, staring at the Varia Suit. She had adjusted it several times over the course of her career, adding modifications to the arm cannon, installing a miniature rocket launcher in the underside of the left arm, and designing a kinetic energy blastoid producer on the leg units. All of her lethal skills and knowledge had been tightly honed for a mission like this one.

Samus Aran was en route to take on the Space Pirates organization on an unknown, hostile planet, one infested with all manner of dangerous life forms, including the mysterious and deadly metroids, and the creature known as Mother Brain. Her father had been known across the 'verse for his victories against the outfit, including its flagship weapon and poster child, the dreaded space dragon, Ridley. She wondered if she would be able to follow in his footsteps and finish the great works that he had started years before.

She grinned to herself, and patted the Varia Suit. "You bet I will," she said to herself.

-Fin

For my loyal readers:

I hope you've enjoyed this fanfiction presentation of Samus Aran's origin. If you're interested in reading other works I've produced over the years, head on over to and just type in 'Joshua Calkins-Treworgy' in the search bar. I've been writing fantasy and horror short stories, novellas and novels since 2007, and I've been doing these fanfiction stories for a few years. They began as a mild interest, and have developed into an exercise that I fully enjoy indulging in.

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